Sleight of Hand
by Le'letha
Summary: The EnterpriseD receives some unusual and unsolicited help in tracking down a stolen ship with a dangerous cargo.
1. Back on the Road With Conditions

_**Sleight of Hand**_

_**Le'letha**_

**Summary: **The Enterprise-D receives some unusual (and unsolicited) help in tracking down a rogue ship with a dangerous cargo.

**Crossover Warning: **This is a **Star Trek: The Next Generation-- Yu Yu Hakusho **crossover. However, you do not need to be familiar with Yu Yu Hakusho to read this. Anything new should be treated like anything unfamiliar in the show/books (of TNG). I promise to explain everything that might possibly be confusing. You are welcome to ask via review if something is unclear. (POST-COMPLETION NOTICE, 9.20.2006: Since more and more of these crossovers are turning up, I'd like to establish that I had this idea FIRST! (glares possessively) Anyone is welcome to prove me wrong.)

**Disclaimer: **The only person who can steal the _Enterprise_ and get away with it is Jim Kirk. Do I look like Kirk to you? (The correct answer is NO.)

**

* * *

****Chapter One: Back on the Road With Conditions**

"Jean-Luc!"

Captain Picard started slightly and spun his chair around, turning to face his ready room desk and the active communicator screen.

"Admiral Lasham," he greeted her formally.

The brunette on the viewscreen crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue impishly at the Starfleet captain, who smiled tolerantly and amended, "Carina."

"Thank you," she said waspishly, before her erratic mood swung back to happy-go-lucky. "Ready to get out of here, Jean-Luc?"

"Oh, more than," he said with a completely straight face, absently bookmarking his copy of _A Christmas Carol_, which he'd been re-reading absently. "I need to get my crew away before you can terrorize them even more. Are you finally letting us go?"

Carina chuckled evilly. "Maybe."

Captain Picard picked up his book again and settled back in his chair. In the week and a half the _Enterprise_-D had been docked at Starbase 263, he'd discovered that the best and probably only way to pry information out of the eccentric _coughnutsocough _Admiral Carina Lasham was to wait her out. She had no patience whatsoever and a natural ebullience that made her the strangest candidate for an Admiralty Picard could think of. Yet here she was, and in command of a Starbase, no less.

"Awww," she whined before fifteen seconds had passed. "You were supposed to guess! You have no sense of fun."

"Guilty as charged," he murmured.

"All right, all right, I'll tell you. Care for a detour, Jean-Luc?"

"A detour?" he asked, looking over his book and raising one eyebrow.

"Well, not really, as you're going to the Sierra sector anyway. It's not that far out of your way…"

Captain Picard put down his book _again_ and looked her straight in the eye. "Carina. In less than twenty words, tell me what this 'detour' is that you're preparing to send the _Enterprise_ on."

She rolled her eyes, dropping the illusion of airhead-ness for a few minutes. "All right. Simply speaking, Starbase 263 has, for the last month, been home to a colonization party- refugees from a civil war on their home planet. They were headed out to Lima Sierra IV, where there is, in fact, already a colony. They were going to reinforce the colony, after a fashion. But…no ship."

Picard was beginning to see where she was going with this. "You want the _Enterprise_ to transport who knows how many colonists to the Lima Sierra system, _on our way_ to tracking down and catching a stolen ship with a hazardous cargo? How many are there, anyway?"

"Um," she fluttered for a moment, shoving PADDs across her desk, and, from the sounds that echoed over the commlink, onto the floor, energetically. Clatter, crash, crunch, went the scattered PADDs. "Ah ha!" She held one up. "Darn paperwork," she muttered to herself, scanning the report quickly. "Two hundred forty-nine, all human," the Admiral said finally. "Here, I'll transmit this to your terminal." She reached off-screen and Picard saw a small icon appear on his own screen. With a few swift keystrokes, he downloaded it to a PADD and set it aside.

"Carina, I don't think this is a good idea," he warned her. "The _Enterprise_ is supposed to be tracking down _Alameda,_ not ferrying colonists to and fro. If we get into a battle, which is almost guaranteed, we'll have two hundred and fifty more civilians on board."

Carina laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them, fluttering her eyelashes outrageously girlishly. "Please?"

He couldn't help but smile slightly. "You're the admiral."

She double taked ridiculously. "Why, what do you know, I believe you're right. Jean-Luc…I am hereby ordering you and the _Enterprise_ to convey the Lima Sierra IV colonists to their destination _en route_ to your pursuit and capture of the rogue vessel _Alameda_. And may God have mercy on your soul," she added with a smirk.

"So noted," he said with a sigh.

"And logged?"

"And logged."

"Good! Let me know when you're prepared to beam them aboard, and then I will release you from my grasp. Lasham out." The screen blinked dark for a moment and then the Federation symbol, with End Transmission in nice neat blue letters beneath it, appeared for a brief moment before vanishing too.

Captain Picard sighed and tapped his commbadge. "Picard to Maintenance."

"Lieutenant Whitley here, Captain; can I help you?"

"You can send a team to Cargo Bays five and six and transform them into temporary living quarters for two hundred and fifty human colonists. We're acquiring some new passengers."

"Acknowledged, Captain," Whitley's voice crackled over the commbadge. "We'll get right to it. Maintenance out."

The captain stood with a sigh and twitched his uniform back into place. Abandoning his book, he strode out onto the bridge.

"Captain," his second-in-command Will Riker acknowledged respectfully, surrendering the center chair to his superior. Once he'd sat down, he said softly, "Are we finally getting out of here? No offense to 263, but I'm ready to get back in open space again."

"Oh, we're back on the road, but we've got 250 passengers to pick up first," he said wryly.

"Did I miss something?"

"Only Carina as she flew by. _Enterprise_ has been commandeered to convey a group of colonists to Lima Sierra IV."

"We've been sent to catch a pirated ship and she's saddling us with passengers?"

"Do you want to go argue with her, Number One?"

Riker openly shuddered. "Not me."

"We're transporting two hundred and fifty people?" Worf growled from the security arch above their heads.

"Yes, but they'll be confined to the cargo bays, I'd imagine. I trust you to make sufficient security arrangements," Picard covered smoothly to ease his security chief's temper.

"Security will not be a problem," the Klingon rumbled.

"Good," the captain responded and began to page through the report on the Lima Sierra colony.

"Lima Sierra…the name's familiar," mused Deanna Troi, ship's counselor. "Orbital anomalies?"

"Yes- good memory," the captain responded absently, still skimming. "Who else will need to be informed of our new cargo?"

"Well, everyone will find out on the grapevine anyway," the Betazoid said. "'The only thing that travels faster than starships is news,' after all. But Doctor Crusher should probably be informed, as a matter of course. She'll be very upset if one of her nurses tells her and we knew all along. And, of course, if there are any problems."

"You mean if _I_ knew all along," Captain Picard said wryly, not wanting to risk a confrontation with Beverly Crusher. "And despite her…eccentricities, Admiral Lasham runs a pretty tight starbase. I don't think there will be any medical issues, but we have had our share of problems. I'll inform Dr. Crusher."

With no reason to stay on the bridge, the captain rose and headed for one of the bridge turbolifts. "Deck 12," he said as the doors swooshed quietly closed, addressing the ceiling. The turbolift began to move almost imperceptibly, except for the slight humming sound and the indicator lights flashing across opposite walls. Within seconds, the doors opened softly on Deck 12, with sickbay right round the corner.

He entered to a completely chaotic mess of people running everywhere and talking even faster than they were moving. Someone ran into him, recognized him, apologized at warp speed, and dashed off again.

"Are you dying?" Dr. Crusher asked as she waded over to him through the ocean of people. She looked him over cursorily. "You're fine. Get out of my sickbay. I'm busy."

"What's all this?"

She sighed. "Alyssa, take over for me for a minute." At her head nurse's, "yes ma'am," she looked back at her captain. "Come on. Whatever you have to say, you can't say it out here. I can't even hear myself think anymore." She led him into her office and sat down. He followed suit on the other side of the desk.

"Why so busy?" he asked kindly.

"Would you believe a full quarter of the crew is allergic to daisies?"

"Actually, I wouldn't."

"Well, you'd be wrong. We need to get back into space and have something to do, Captain, the crew is bored stiff. Ensign Allery was experimenting with common plants, and now we have a rash of daisy-fever allergies. I've got people all over the ship complaining. I suppose I should thank you for coming in; I get to sit down for a minute." She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with a sigh. "So what's so important that you have to come all the way down here to tell me about it?"

"If you're this busy, I'm not sure I want to tell you."

She opened one eye and glared at him tiredly. "Talk."

"Carina's asked us to take a few people off her hands and transport them to Lima Sierra IV," he summarized, glossing over how many 'a few' actually was.

Unfortunately, Beverly was sharper than that. "How many is a few?"

He sighed. "250."

"Oh."

"I thought you should know."

"I should know. Now I do. If anyone asks where I am, you haven't seen me, got it?" She promptly closed her open eye and, from all appearances, lapsed into sleep. Quietly, the captain left, managing to avoid being conscripted into moving stuff but not quite achieving the feat of not tripping over at least three people before he escaped into the corridor.

**AN- **Well, soon a plot will develop… please please trust me and keep reading this. Don't make me beg- darn, too late. PLEASE R&R and bear with me as I get this off the ground!


	2. Extra Passengers

**Author's Note: **I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing. Special thanks to **grayangle **who did more than just breathe and is my first R&R-er. Thank you for reading, all the rest of you out there. Please keep doing so.

**Chapter Two: Extra Passengers**

The transporter effect was nearly blinding as fifty people beamed in at once. Standing a little way off, Dr. Crusher slitted her eyes to avoid being blinded. Beside her, Deanna Troi raised one arm involuntarily.

"Bright, isn't it," she murmured to her red-haired companion.

"Cargo transporters aren't meant to transport people," the doctor replied as the first party finished having their molecules reassembled.

Moments after she'd finished her sentence, the light and the ringing sound died away, leaving behind fifty people who had, moments ago, been kilometers away on the starbase.

"Welcome to the _Enterprise_," Dr. Crusher called as they shifted. "Please stay where you are for just a moment."

The majority of the party obeyed instantly, except for one man, who worked his way through the crowd and stepped down to join them.

"I'm Gunthar; I'm in charge of this group," he said brusquely, not giving a last name.

"Good to meet you. I'm Dr. Crusher; this is Counselor Troi."

He shook hands with them hastily; then his face abruptly broke into a smile.

"Sorry. I don't like being transported. It wreaks havoc with my nerves and makes me a little jumpy for a few seconds. Where—oh, hang on a second."

Both women watched, puzzled, as he turned back to the transporter platform. Rejoining his people, he waded through them without so much as a by-your-leave. Shoving two squabbling teenage boys to one side, he appeared to find what or who he was after. He returned to the doctor and the counselor with a vaguely smiling boy with ragged strawberry-blond hair. Gunthar stopped in front of them, but the boy kept walking aimlessly. With a sigh, he put one hand on the child's shoulder, stopping him. Looking rather confused, but still with that slight smile, he stopped moving and stared with apparent fascination at the transporter console.

Gunthar apologized again. "The kid's a simpleton, and mute with it. I've been making sure he doesn't get into any trouble for the last few days. If I let him out of my sight for any length of time, he'll wander off and never be seen again."

Out of curiosity, Deanna stretched her empathic senses out towards the boy. She found, in that strange way, one-dimensional perceptions of the world but no true understanding or even really thought. "It's like shallow water over glass," she murmured.

Gunthar shot her an odd look. "Why would you say that?" he asked warily.

"I'm half-Betazoid," she said mildly, hoping that didn't offend him too greatly—not that she could do anything about it if it did offend him.

To her relief, he merely nodded slightly. "So, Doctor, where do you want us?"

The doctor pulled out her medical tricorder from one of her voluminous pockets, addressing the whole group. "We would ask you to please remain in this bay as we travel to Lima Sierra. We have made every provision for your comfort, but if there's anything we can do, there will be officers stationed outside the double doors at every hour. For the moment, please step from the platform one at a time so I can scan you," she addressed the colonists. To her slight surprise, there was only a minimum of trouble in getting fifty people into one line.

"Security officers?" Gunthar said with slight disapproval in his voice.

"We have a very cautious chief of security," Deanna placated him. "It's nothing against you and yours.'

"I understand."

The colonists began to slowly file off the transporter pads, stopping in front of Dr. Crusher and waiting for her nod before dispersing one by one. Engrossed in her scans, she only partially listened to the conversation between Gunthar and Deanna Troi.

"Tell me, why would a boy like this be sent on a colonization mission? Shouldn't he be in a mental hospital?"

"Who, Sean?" Gunthar asked, finishing a brief conversation with one of his people.

"Is that his name?" the counselor asked, watching Sean watch Beverly—or, upon further observation, just her tricorder. Next to the doctor's copper-red hair, his hair looked positively blond. Abruptly, she double-taked slightly. For a moment, she could have sworn that he looked different, but an instant later there was only a vacant blue-eyed boy watching a tricorder with clueless fascination.

"Yes," Gunthar continued without noticing her momentary surprise. "And from what I can make out, his mother and father were signed up for this trip, and decided to take him along. They were probably after a quiet place to look after him."

"So where are they now?"

"His records say transporter accident. Both parents killed," he snapped his fingers, "like that! I don't think he has any other family, so the social services decided he was coming with us. He's harmless really. He needs precise instruction and patience, but he's no danger to anyone. Besides, he's a direct contrast to those two," he added with a scowl, pointing at the two teenagers who had been arguing before. It had now escalated to the beginning stages of an out-and-out punching match. "Excuse me." He headed towards them with grim purpose. "Hey! You two! You've been warned…" His voice faded away, covered by other voices as the cargo bay filled steadily.

**

* * *

**

Her tricorder bleeped steadily as person after person filed past at her nod. Upon reflection, she thought wryly, this really wasn't necessary. Everyone she'd scanned so far seemed in perfect health, and remarkably patient.

As the end of the line drew near, however, she got a surprise. Keeping her gaze on her tricorder, not having looked up in quite a while, she literally jumped as the readings—and the volume—jumped abruptly. She looked up in shock to find the person currently in front of her smiling tolerantly and the simpleton standing beside her tricorder, waving his hand at randomly varying paces in front of it and listening and watching its reaction with delight.

The doctor put one hand over her heart in the hope of calming it. "You gave me a real fright there, you know," she told the boy. He didn't seem to hear her and merely moved his hand closer and farther to the business end of the scanning device.

Deciding to take the simple alternative, she put one hand on his wrist and gently pushed his hand down. He looked up at her with vacant, half-closed eyes and moved to just behind her elbow. He put his hands behind his back, smiling again.

"That's better," she told him.

"Sean!" Gunthar bellowed, rounding on him from a large group of people. "Leave the doctor alone!"

"It's all right!" she called back. "He's not bothering me; he can stay if he wants to!"

Gunthar shook his head silently and turned back to his people as the last of this group of passengers trooped past. Beverly closed her tricorder with a relieved sigh, and then groaned as she remembered that this was only a fifth of their passengers.

A slim hand reached out to touch the closed tricorder's silver case curiously. "All done," she told Sean with a smile. "Oh, I haven't scanned you yet, have I?" She flipped it open and pointed it at him. However, the combination of the sudden movement and the flashing tool currently pointed _at_ him startled the boy, and he moved away. She closed the tricorder with no readings to speak of and smiled at him to apologize, but he was already distracted by the play of light and shadow across the bulkhead on the opposite side of the cargo bay, and was wandering toward it to study it.

She shook her head, sorry for the young man, and pocketed her tricorder. "Deanna!" she called. "Ready to move on?"

"I'm coming," Deanna replied, and fell into step beside her as they exited the cargo bay, doors swishing closed and cutting off the chatter from within. The two guards in yellow-gold uniforms nodded respectfully to them as they walked by.

"Do you have a copy of the report on _Alameda_?" Deanna asked. "I'm ashamed to say I fell asleep in the middle of it last night. I'd like to finish it."

"Of course," Beverly assured her, fishing in one of the pockets of her lab coat. "Or at least, I thought I had it with me…It's not here! That's odd. I was sure I put it in my pocket before I left sickbay." She shrugged. "I'll find a spare PADD and download it from the computer core for you when I have the time."

"No, don't bother, Beverly, I can do it. I was just wondering."

"Still," the doctor said irritably. "I was _sure_ I had it just before we entered the cargo bay…"

**

* * *

**

Hours later during the night shift, long after the ship had taken off, he settled comfortably into a corner, hidden from the rest of the sleeping people by several large containers, a blanket, and the simple fact that the lights were at 25 percent of their former power all over the ship. _Comfortable—ha!_ he thought with a sarcastic mental laugh. Listening carefully for a few seconds, he could hear nothing but the sleeping colonists. With a sigh of relief, he shed the tailored illusion that hid his real appearance.

"Much better," he said aloud, barely above a whisper. Shoving the illusion to one side—it had been created with much the texture and qualities as thin cloth—he pulled Beverly Crusher's missing PADD from one pocket. Idly, he paged through it, skim-reading it for anything useful.

Pocketing the PADD quietly, he leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking. _You there?_

_No._ was the one word reply.

_You're hilarious. I could read you this whole report I got my hands on, but there's nothing here we don't already know, and a lot we really don't need to._

_Like what?_

_Way too much technical information on infernium. I'm mildly interested, but I _know_ you don't care._

_Not really. Summarize for me. I'm listening._

_Good,_ he teased, unable to resist. _I hate talking to myself._

He could hear the silent mutters about the quality of _those_ conversations, but ignored them. _So. They know that_ Alameda _is currently haunting the Sierra sector with a cargo of captured infernium. They know that Fenell is captaining it and think that he's planning to sell the infernium to the highest bidder. There's a lot in here about how infernium is a recently developed experimental medicine that has potential threats to the ecology of multiple and varied worlds, et cetera. We know that. Basically, they know everything we do with a few omissions. _

_Like what he's planning to do with it?_

_Hmm, and its effect on more than just 'the ecology of multiple and varied worlds.' Are you hidden?_

There was a long pause, followed by, _A stupid question…fool._

_Now that you've got that out of your system, would you care to tell me where you are?_ he replied cheerfully.

_Deck 16. No one's been one the Captain's Yacht in a little while, and they're not planning on using it anytime soon. So I've commandeered it._

_Commandeered is such a careful word. You stole it._

_Nothing is stolen until you get away with it. I haven't moved it._

He smiled to himself. _Thieves' logic?_

_What else?_

_Good. Stay low; let me know when you're ready to move out. Or can you get into-_

He was cut off as the entire ship shook hard, both automatically severing the telepathic link as danger threatened. It shook again and again, and he winced as red alert lights began to flash and the captain's voice boomed over the intercom;

_"Red alert! All hands to battle stations. Repeat, all hands to battle stations!"_

* * *

**Author's Note: **The plot is now here- that didn't take too long. Tune in in about a week for a space battle- that's about how long it'll take me to get the next chapter off the ground, assuming I work on Yellow Submarine for a day or two. 


	3. Pirates With Phasers

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Enterprise but I do own a Voyager model!

**Author's Note: **I have now figured out the time-setting of this story. It is set in the early part of Next Generation's fourth season, before "Final Mission." If Wes Crusher is at the helm, it sort of has to be then…

**A Small Request: **Do not run away screaming, Wesley-Haters (that's in capital letters, people!), he's just here to fly the ship…and maybe to make a few stupid comments later. Much later.

**Chapter Three: Pirates With Phasers**

Riker bit back several unkind words as the _Enterprise_ bucked like a wild horse again, nearly throwing him from his seat. The ensigns manning the science stations on the back wall were not nearly so lucky, and were scattered across the bridge like blown chaff in a tornado.

"Report!" he called over the crashes and the red-alert klaxon. He toyed with the idea of adding, "and someone shut that damn siren off," but decided against it. That was captain's prerogative.

"Shields at 53 percent," Worf rumbled furiously, doggedly hanging on to his console. "Unidentified vessel coming about."

"Helm, initiate evasive maneuvers," the captain instructed calmly. "Pattern theta six-eight. Data, find out who's attacking us!" His last words were cut off by another shot from their attackers, slamming into their weakened shields and packing more of a punch than most phasers.

The _Enterprise_ whined furiously as she dodged through space, struggling to get away from the pounding fire. The frequency of the impacts decreased noticeably, a testament to Wesley Crusher's expertise.

"Captain," Data said implacably, spinning in his chair, "We have come under attack by an Orion cargo transport, circa 2356; Starfleet designation _Sprinter_-class, Orion designation unknown."

"Orions," Riker muttered. "Pirates. Those ships are all engines and weapons; made for quick deliveries—or quick raids."

Data ignored Riker's side comments. "Captain, analysis of the vessel and comparison with _Enterprise_'s database indicates that this is _Alameda._"

The captain and the entire bridge crew jerked to attention. "Data, are you sure?" Picard asked urgently.

The android blinked at him. "Within a 96.339 margin of error, taking into account discrepancies between-"

"All right, that's good enough," he said cutting off Data's lecture. "Mr. Worf, prepare to fire phasers. Target their weapons and engines"

"Phasers locked," Worf said, managing to convey with only two words that they'd been locked for a good long time now.

Before the captain could order the attack, _Alameda_ struck their weakened shields hard. Any further orders were lost in the cacophony of a starship under fire, along the lines of _Kapow! Crash! Red-alert siren! Boom! Screech! _Times ten.

"Mr. Worf, fire at will!" Captain Picard shouted over the noise, stubbornly refusing to be thrown from his chair.

"Aye, sir!" the Klingon growled back, also remaining standing. Mere moments later, bright red energy stabbed out from the phaser banks mounted on the saucer section's hull, biting into _Alameda_ with a vengeance. The slim ship reeled back as the shots connected, burning through _Alameda_'s own weapons banks.

_Enterprise_ swooped closer as Ensign Crusher regained his seat. Carefully, they approached the momentarily crippled ship. Sparks were flying from the phaser banks mounted on the pirate ship's hull, burning fleetingly even in the void of space. From the scene on the viewscreen, it seemed that the power had gone out on the other vessel, for all ports and running lights were dark.

"Mr. Worf, target engines and shield generators," Riker ordered quickly.

As they hovered within kilometers of the pirate ship, it suddenly sparked to life again, engines powering up and photon torpedo launchers glowing fiercely.

"Fire!" Riker ordered as fast as he could.

The two ships fired on each other with full power at point-blank range. For an instant, space changed from star-studded black to the orange, yellow, red, and every color in between of some very large explosions.

"Mr. Worf, knock out those photon launchers," Picard said hurriedly. "Prepare a tractor beam. Ensign Crusher, back us away, but keep us within tractor range."

"Aye, sir," they both said, the Klingon's bass far eclipsing the younger ensign's. A quick pattern of photon torpedoes, the big guns of the twenty-fourth century, darted out from the _Enterprise_'s stardrive section at near-lightspeed. The first to reach _Alameda_'s admittedly still-close shields impacted on their defenses, not even reaching the iridescent pale green hull, but the two that followed directly on its heels soared through the just-developed hole in _Alameda_'s shields and punched into the pirates' remaining weapons systems with the force of an antimatter explosion, which it was.

The rogue ship was hammered back through space, tumbling wildly. It regained its equilibrium with difficulty and limped away at mid-range warp without even bothering to take potshots at the bigger ship behind it.

About to continue issuing orders to pursue and capture, Captain Picard was interrupted by a call from Engineering.

"Engineering to bridge," Geordi La Forge's voice came over the intercom. "Whatever you're planning up there, you'd better not. The magnetic constrictor coils have locked down; if we don't stop overtaxing them now, we'll have a core breach on our hands, and there'll be nothing I can do about it."

"Can we spare the energy for a tractor beam?" the captain asked hurriedly.

"Captain, right now we can barely spare energy for the lights. My professional advice is to shut off all non-emergency systems until we can get the core back in shape."

"Mr. La Forge, we are in the middle of a battle—"

"Sir, the core's about to go critical!"

With the threat of a warp core breach on his hands, there was only one thing the captain of any decent ship could do—take his engineer's advice. Captain Picard gritted his teeth and gave the order. "Mr. La Forge, shut down all non-essential systems and get to work on that core."

"Right away, sir," Geordi said with a subtle sigh of relief. "Engineering out."

Picard permitted himself one small sigh as the viewscreen clicked off and the lights dimmed abruptly.

"Damn," Riker said with feeling.

"Indeed," Picard said drolly. He rose, automatically tugged his uniform top down, and said, "Number One, you have the bridge…or what's left of it," he added with unusual gallows humor. The bridge really was a mess, with various consoles burnt out and the debris from their explosions scattered across the floor. In the reduced lights, it resembled a junkyard more than the flagship of Starfleet.

"Aye, sir," the first officer said to the captain's back as he vanished into his ready room. He waited until the doors had closed to add, "But what am I supposed to do with it?"

**

* * *

**

Down in Main Engineering, Geordi La Forge rested his head against an unresponsive computer panel in brief annoyance. With a sigh, he looked up and began distributing repair teams left, right, and center.

It had taken fifteen minutes, every engineer in Engineering, and a lot of sweat and swearing to stabilize the warp core. Currently, the main core was in no danger of collapsing, but the rest of the ship had taken a hard pounding too. Non-essential personnel swarmed all over the _Enterprise_ like ants in a disturbed anthill, repairing, rerouting, and restoring the _Galaxy_-class starship to its normal pristine state.

As he joined his engineering crew in fine-tuning the patch job on the warp core, the lights suddenly plunged to complete blackness. Engineering suddenly seemed like a haunted tomb with the sullenly pulsing blue core as the only illumination. Five seconds later, they came back on as if nothing had happened.

"What the hell was that?" Geordi yelled from the catwalk above the lower level. He glanced around, leaning over the railing at quite a reckless angle. Spotting a typically nervous Reginald Barclay, he shouted, "Reg, get on the lighting; we can't fix this bucket if we can't see!"

"Ye-ye-yes, sir," the hapless engineer stuttered, and scuttled away, dodging a team of yellow-shirted engineers, to work on the lights, which were relatively low priority and even lower stress, a perfect job for insecure Reg Barclay.

**

* * *

**

"We took a pretty thorough beating, Captain," he said hours later at a senior staff briefing. "_Alameda_ may be smaller than us, but she's definitely up to our level on offensive technologies."

"How long until the ship is fully operational again?" the captain demanded in a no-nonsense fashion.

"Two days, assuming _Alameda_ doesn't come back to finish us off," the Chief Engineer estimated.

"Make it so," Picard said reflexively. "Status reports, everyone."

"We took heavy casualties," Doctor Crusher reported. "Mostly bumps and bruises from being tossed around, though we did have several more serious injuries. Most of the injured have been released, although my staff is monitoring a few who need further observation."

"Fatalities?" the captain asked.

"Not yet, but there's one or two crewmen who sustained serious injury, and I'm afraid the prognosis isn't good."

"Understood. Any further reports?"

"Weapons will be back on-line with the next four hours," Worf rumbled.

"Very good. Counselor, what is the crew's morale as you perceive it?"

"Understandably, slightly discouraged at our near-defeat. However, the general mood seems unaffected. They now have a reason besides their orders to catch up to the pirate ship," the half-Betazoid said clearly. "They will do their duty, Captain."

"Excellent. Mr. La Forge, keep me posted on your status. Dismissed."

The senior staff rose almost as one and filed out through two different doors, some to the bridge, others, like Geordi and Dr. Crusher, to their stations at lower decks.

Captain Picard remained seated at the head of the table for a brief moment, looking out at the fluxing stars before rising and pacing slightly; six steps to the left, six to the right, brooding over the events of the last two days. He had just come to the conclusion that they had been caught off guard and would have to take steps to reconcile that when the overhead lights blinked out decisively.

He looked up, annoyed. "Computer, lights on."

A bleeping sound emanated from the ceiling, but no burst of illumination broke the darkness. The captain sighed, exasperated, and, by the light of the warped stars, made his way back onto the bridge.


	4. Lights Out

**Chapter Four: Lights Out**

**Author's Note:** Stop spazzing, Kokoro; in the words of the window washer, all will be made clear. (I've always wanted to say that; don't you _dare_ steal it!)

**

* * *

**

_Captain's Log, supplemental:_

_Having been regretfully caught off-guard in neutral space and having engaged the cruiser _Alameda_ ahead of schedule, the _Enterprise_ is currently in a state of moderate disrepair. The ship and crew took a heavy beating from Fenell's attacks but have rallied themselves and recovered quite commendably. We have tracked the last known heading of _Alameda_ and are preparing to pursue the also-damaged Orion Sprinter. _

There followed a list of damages and commendations, and then;

_There has been a rash of unexplained malfunctions in the last few days. The entire ship has experienced rolling blackouts that extinguish lights, shut down computer terminals, and render even handheld devices such as PADDs, communicators, and tricorders powerless and useless. Engineering offers no sure explanation for these malfunctions, but maintains that damage from the _Alameda_ battle could be causing it. I am confident that my Engineering crew will rise to this challenge as they have risen to all others before._

* * *

_Personal Log of Captain Jean-Luc Picard:_

_Although impressed by my crew's response to our recent battle, I find myself uneasy. Perhaps it is knowing that the _Enterprise_ is damaged—a condition I never enjoy—or perhaps it is the presence of the passengers that Admiral Lasham saw fit to deposit on us as if flagging down a common transport. Although they have behaved themselves admirably, remaining in their assigned areas even throughout the battle two days past, I am not comfortable having extra civilians on board. Even the children and families that regularly frequent the _Enterprise_ have been difficult to adjust to. Luckily, the remote Lima Sierra sector is a mere two weeks distant; a far cry from the nearly four years the crew's families have been on board. However, I will be glad to see the back of them. _

_Of course, my unease may merely be the fault of the unexplained power outages that roam the ship. I myself have heard some of the more imaginative crewmen speculating about 'ghosts' in Ten-Forward. I've never really considered the possibility that the _Enterprise_ might be haunted, and I won't now. It's absurd. However, I must concede that the modus operandi of these power failures do closely match the literary effects of said ghosts on the technology of the living. Taking this ridiculous hypothesis—_bzzzzt.

_The blackout has just visited my quarters. It maintained for approximately four minutes, and then all systems returned to life as if nothing had happened. It has just occurred to me that a blackout during a combat situation would be most likely fatal._

_As I was saying, and have now observed, the only symptom of a supernatural visitation that is missing is the traditional drop in temperature. No such anomaly has just occurred._

_End log._

**

* * *

**

Data sat at a vacant terminal in the computer core, reading every word of the documents that flashed by at humanly unreadable speeds. The lieutenant commander kept one hand on the keypanel, pulling up the records of the basic computer code. A human would not only be unable to read at Data's speed, but the computer code was all but incomprehensible to all but trained experts and Starfleet's only android officer.

Data had been assisting his friend Geordi in repairing the abundant damage to the ship for the last few days. Although the persistent blackouts had merely inconvenienced them at first, things had finally come to a head when one had decided to drop by in the final, crucial seconds of an important computer simulation pertaining to the still-fluctuating warp core. Geordi, who had been waiting on tenterhooks for the results, had thrown an impromptu, suitably dignified temper tantrum, and reassigned a good quarter of the repair teams to finding the problem and fixing it.

He'd repented a few minutes later; once he'd calmed down, of course. The blind chief engineer had sheepishly ordered the crewmen back to their previous jobs and politely asked Data to take a look at it.

Data had obliged, and immediately started assembling other theories, besides battle damage, that might account for the problem. He'd ended up in the overheated, cramped, and (luckily) poorly staffed computer core, checking the legions of gigabytes of data for any variations from the norm.

The computer core was one of the least-visited sites on the _Enterprise_. It contained four terminals, two of which could be found only by edging around the enormous main computer, which protruded into a small room, and could easily be taken as a wall by the casual observer. As it required only one crewman on duty during non-emergency scenarios, the environment was also badly regulated. When Life Support was failing, it was a horrible place to be for any human crewman. A Vulcan might enjoy the dry desert heat that the supercomputer emitted; few others visited the central core unless directly ordered to.

Data merely registered the humanly uncomfortable environment and went back to the task he had assigned himself.

It was a job that would have taken a dozen programmers nearly fifty years; checking the current code displayed on the terminal screen against an uncorrupted read-only copy. Data had certain advantages; one, he had an uncorrupted read-only copy in his positronic brain, and so could check and read at the same time, and two, he could read almost faster than the computer could display the information.

He stopped abruptly at the brief sound of a soft rustle, looking up from the terminal and stalling the flow of data. Remaining perfectly still, he listened closely for any sound.

The computer clicked and bleeped to itself; the ensign on duty sat idly at the console furthest from the actual core, and therefore the coolest, tapping his station in a manner that seemed suspiciously more like a causal electronic game than any actual duty, and the ventilation system hummed softly in direct counterpoint to the rumble of the warp drive that pervaded the ship whenever it traveled faster than light.

None of that was anything out of the ordinary.

The ensign shifted sedately and rubbed his hand against his arm, producing a soft sound. Data nodded to himself once, and nearly returned to his work before pausing again.

Ensign Mekél had made that gesture multiple times since he had sat down to his review of the computer, and, when he replayed the two sounds in his head, they were not the same at all. Again, no human would have been able to detect the difference, but then, very few humans would have heard the original sound in the first place.

**

* * *

**

_Stupid! Stupid, stupid!_

He called himself three other bad names, hidden in a back corner of the awkward room, a safe distance from the terminal he'd been using. Closing his eyes, he focused for a brief moment, hiding his aura, and therefore his presence, from even the ship's revolutionary sensors.

_Damn._

Seconds later, he opened his eyes, watching the android survey the core's compartment. The instant he looked away, however, he moved soundlessly across the room, perching on the chair in front of the only other active terminal. Keeping a wary eye on Data, he wiped any evidence of his presence in the system from the system itself. He'd become quite good with practice, and in the time it took for Data to look back around, he'd erased any trace of not only what he'd done, but even that he'd done it, and vanished, ghostlike.

**

* * *

**

"Computer, who is in the computer core division?" Data queried the computer, which responded,

"Lieutenant Commander Data. Ensign Ryan Mekél."

"Continue."

"No other life-forms are within the computer core division," it said in its precise feminine voice.

"Acknowledged," Data replied.

"Commander?" Ensign Mekél asked, glancing at him and rising to assist him. He crossed the small space quickly. "Is everything all right?"

"There are no problems, ensign. You may return to your duties," Data reassured him.

"Aye, sir," the young ensign replied, and walked the few steps to his station in silence.

Data surveyed the room once more, deciding not to contemplate what had made him so sure that another person had entered. After all, androids did not possess intuition…right?

He dismissed that possible breakthrough in his development and growth as an artificial life-form for another time. However, he abruptly had several minutes to explore it when the power outage struck his workstation—and everything else within fifty meters.

"Commander?" Mekél said, voice quavering.

"Remain calm, Ensign," he said steadily. "The blackout will move on in an average of three point eight-six minutes."

They sat in silent darkness for, to Data's mild interest, four point four-nine minutes. He absently added that to his calculation of the average time and adjusted his estimate accordingly.

Turning back to his console, he called up the permanent code records again, and resumed scanning. Six point three-seven-two seconds later, by his internal chronometer, he stopped short once more. A section of code had been excised as if with a knife—which was, of course, a theoretical impossibility. When he referenced it with his databanks, he discovered that the missing piece pertained to the replication of fish food.

"Most interesting," he said quietly, and inquired as to when it had been removed.

The computer maintained that it had been deleted a day after the _Enterprise_'s commission. Which was impossible. Data updated these mental files every half-year, and it had been there during his last scheduled download—four months ago, and therefore over three and a half years after the computer thought it had been erased.

He raised one eyebrow. "Intriguing."

Quickly, not even reading the code that scrolled by, he searched for any other missing pieces. However, despite another hour of watching line after line of programming roll across the screen, he found no other anomalies in the mainframe.

Disregarding the desert heat that pervaded the atmosphere so close to the core, Data picked up a PADD and began to enter his report on what he had found.

**

* * *

**

Data was _on_ to him; he had found the _one_ block of code he hadn't had time to replace. He'd rearranged the dates, but he hadn't counted on the android having the entire computer codes memorized. He sat and seethed quietly, waiting for his chance.

_Wait a moment…_

Soundlessly, he slipped around to the other hidden terminal; not the one he'd used before. Muting all sounds with a single touch, he filled in the gap he'd left in his cutting and pasting.

_Damn it, _I_ shouldn't be doing this, he's better at it. Silly trickster was the one who came up with this,_ he thought withoutany venom. _There. That should do._

The gap in the human ship's code was gone. Ten more seconds at the console erased the automatic records of the code being replaced and the records of the console ever having been used.

He heard the android begin to move a half-instant before he was around the core and in full sight of both consoles, but that half-instant was all he needed. By the time Data had cleared the wall, he was long out of sight.

In passing, he pocketed Data's near-finished report almost automatically. As Data ground to a halt, he paused, spitefully wanting to witness the android's reaction.

"Data to the bridge," he said calmly, tapping the insignia on his chest.

"Picard here," the captain replied via commbadge.

"Captain, I believe there may be an intruder aboard," he said, gaze falling upon where his PADD had lain.

"Understood. Report back to the bridge immediately. Picard out."

The lieutenant commander turned and left without another word. However, had he been a telepath, he would have 'heard' some truly foul curses in several different languages.

* * *

_Damn! Damn, damn, damn!_

He couldn't even communicate with his partner, many decks below. Not with his inability to maintain an illusion and speak telepathically at the same time. He could either blow their covers or handle this on his own.

_I guess I've gotten used to having someone to swear to,_ he thought bad-temperedly, tossing a couple curses along the lines of 'weakling' at himself, and darted off to find a place to hide.


	5. Intruder, Infiltrator

**Chapter Five: Intruder, Infiltrator**

**Disclaimer: **You're not stupid. You know I don't own TNG or YYH.

**Author's Note:** I'd really like to know how many of you reading this (I know you're out there) are actually familiar with both Yu Yu Hakusho and Next Generation and how many are just trusting me to explain stuff. It'll take just as long as it takes you to click the little 'Go' button at the bottom of this page and type 'both' or 'just TNG' although I hope you'll put more than that. (I do take anonymous reviews, by the way.) It'll help a lot with upcoming chapters, since it would be nice to know what kind of audience I'm writing to here. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks, **Le'letha.**

* * *

Kurama was bored, uncomfortable, and annoyed, in that level of priority. Bored, because he had nothing to do and no one to talk to; uncomfortable, because illusions were uncomfortable if maintained too long; and annoyed because he was bored and uncomfortable. A vicious circle, especially because the illusion problem generated the no-one-to-talk-to problem. But the biggest problem, he decided, was definitely boredom. There was only so many times he could run through an inherently simple plan in his mind, and only so many elaborate additions he could add to it. Besides, any extras wouldn't last long. They'd all be vetoed out-of-hand.

He sighed quietly and pillowed his head on his hands, leaning back against the wall. He found another reason to be annoyed; he couldn't even _look_ annoyed. His current disguise wasn't capable of it. That irritated him, starting the whole stupid cycle over again.

_I need someone to talk to,_ he decided to make his first priority. To that end, he rose and moved absently across the cargo bay. The few people who paid any attention to him merely brushed him off, seeing only the half-witted boy they called Sean.

_Sean…how would they react if they knew he didn't exist? And does it really matter?_

Of course it didn't. If all went well, they wouldn't have to.

"Sean? Where are you?"

Of course, life, fate, and the universe could be difficult about all this…

Stifling the impulse to laugh in Gunthar's face and make a run for an exit, he turned around, fixing a look of brainless vapidity on his illusory face.

"Ah, where have you been?" the large man boomed.

Not supposed to reply, Kurama nevertheless thought vindictively, _How far could I go?_

Gunthar barreled on. "The doctor wanted to take a look at you. She didn't get a proper reading on you last time she was here, so she came back. Wasn't that nice of her?"

Having listened to him talk like this for the last week or so, Kurama and Sean merely ignored it. He (possibly they) had other things to think about.

The red-haired doctor peeked around Gunthar, medical tricorder firmly in hand. She smiled professionally at him, and Sean smiled back. Part of the act. Luckily, he only had two widely different personalities to keep straight at the moment. The third persona hadn't been talking to the first for a couple of centuries, and the second was a figment of his imagination, and therefore didn't really exist, but he still had to keep an eye on it.

He thought about the odd nature of his own existence for a moment and then stopped before he got another headache, bringing his thoughts back to the problem (for such it definitely was, if not a very big one) at hand, which was talking at Sean patiently.

"I'm just going to point the tricorder at you for a few seconds. You've seen me use it before, remember. You liked the way it flashed."

_Actually, I just wanted to swipe that report in your pocket._ A good thing she _couldn't_ hear him thinking, hm? The Betazoid would have been more of a problem, although he'd blocked her out without anything more than his normal mental shields.

"Look, see. You can touch it if you like while I scan you," Doctor Crusher kept on as she flipped her tricorder open and pointed at him.

_Oh, no; I don't think so. Not a good idea._

He wasn't sure how the doctor's tricorder would react to him, but he knew it probably wouldn't show the brain-sickly twelve-year-old Sean. It might only register Sean, or it might just possibly show an at-least-partly-human who was probably pushing three hundred. Of course, it might just get confused. And most of the above would lead to stupid questions, and entirely too much curiosity on Dr. Crusher's part. Time to throw a scene.

_Good, something to do._

**

* * *

**

Beverly kept talking soothingly to the blond little boy as she programmed her scanner. He probably didn't understand a word of it, but perhaps her tone was getting through. He was watching her directly but vacantly as always. She'd never seen a different expression cross his face.

She raised the tricorder slowly, not wanting to startle him as she'd done the first time she'd tried. Of course, it didn't work.

The instant it started flashing, his blue eyes went wide as saucers. It was like looking into two deep blue holes; there was nothing behind them except possibly…fear? Of the tricorder? He leapt back, stumbling over his own feet and ending up flat on his back on the hard metal floor, staring up at her tricorder like it had bitten him. Opening his mouth, he seemed to be trying to scream, although the fact that he was mute hindered him. He flailed about on the ground for a moment, trying to scramble away on his back without looking away from her, before Gunthar caught him and dragged him to his feet, pinioning both arms and stopping him from escaping by sheer muscle.

"Whoa!" he cried, restraining the still-struggling child. "What sparked this?"

"Must be the tricorder," Doctor Crusher replied, startled. A crowd was beginning to gather, standing a goodly distance away and staring concernedly. She lowered the scanner slowly, closing the flap to deactivate it. The instant it was out of sight in her pocket, Sean ceased his admittedly useless struggles and fell still, his vapid stare and air-headed smile returning as if they had never left.

Gunthar released him slowly, allowing him to find his feet before letting go completely. The child stood there blinking harmlessly before wandering off through the crowd, which parted away from him quietly. Not noticing, (or not caring) he smiled vaguely at them all before vanishing behind a goodly stack of barrels.

"That was strange," Dr. Crusher said. "He didn't react that extremely to my tricorder last time; he only jumped away. If I'd known he was that afraid of it, I wouldn't have even tried. I don't want to hurt him, just see if I could do something for him."

"First, do no harm, is that it, Doctor?" Gunthar said amiably, paraphrasing the Hippocratic Oath. "Admirable."

She sighed and shrugged. "So much for that."

"So much for what?"

"Thinking I could help him. Mental illness is probably my least favorite affliction—it makes me so sad to see people who could be thinking, normal beings…but if I can't even scan him, there's no chance."

Gunthar narrowed his eyes. "I wonder… how did the medical facilities diagnose him if you can't even point a tricorder at him?"

"I suppose they just didn't let him know they were scanning him." She sighed. "I'd love to stay and talk, but I told Alyssa I wouldn't be long."

"Go, doctor. Don't let us keep you from your duties."

She smiled goodbye back over her shoulder as she passed through the double cargo bay doors.

**

* * *

**

Kurama collapsed into a heap on the ground, safely hidden from the other forty-nine people in the bay, struggling to keep from laughing out loud and therefore ruining his disguise for good.

_That was fun!_ he thought, trickster kitsune nature bubbling to the fore. _I've not laughed so hard since…_ His mind presented several incidents within the last year alone.

Desperate for conversation, he decided the risk was worth it and shed his "Sean" illusion, regaining his natural form but keeping a sharp ear out for visitors.

_Hell's flames, fox. What was that all about?_

Kurama smiled. _You were watching?_

_Just keeping an eye on you-_ he started, but got no farther before the fox interrupted, whooping with sudden laughter.

_Why, Hiei, was that a joke? From _you he teased, still unable to laugh aloud, but filling his partner's mind with chuckles.

All he got was stony silence, but he hadn't expected anything else. _It wasn't intended to be._

_Well, it was funny. And as to what that little tantrum was about, I didn't want her scanning me. I'm not sure what it would show._

_I suppose that's a fairly good reason to make an idiot of yourself, _Hiei replied.

_Yes, well, if you have been watching, then you know there have been no problems down here. What about you? I see the blackouts have been doing their job._

_I still think they were a little too obvious._

_Yeah, well, your idea had its shortcomings too; considering it was pretty close to 'toss any witnesses out an airlock'…wait a second. What's wrong?_ he demanded.

_The android's on to us…well, me,_ he snarled. _He knows I'm on board, and he figured out that we're messing with the computer. The bridge just issued a level-three intruder alert and I can't spin illusions of empty wall like you can. They're searching with scanner and sight, and their entire security force is mobilizing._

_Well, I certainly hope you can stay out of their way,_ Kurama replied steadily. _Unless you get caught, they'll not be able to act until we tip our hand. And we won't do that until we're ready._

_I won't get caught._

_No, I suppose not. But still…be careful, Hiei._

**

* * *

**

_How the hell am I supposed to work with security people underfoot all the time?_ Geordi La Forge thought irritably, looking up from the master situations monitor that dominated the entrance to Main Engineering. At his count, there were currently eleven phaser-rifle-toting men and women of at least four diverse species patrolling _his_ engine room, getting in the way of his engineers and significantly slowing down repairs.

It would have been more of a problem if they weren't almost finished anyway. However, they now had a new and important job to do, and the security people were somewhat crucial to its success, even though every engineer now wore a type-two phaser clipped to his or her belt.

The Plan had been Commander Riker's idea, and although Geordi didn't like the idea of Main Engineering being both trap and bait, it was the most likely place on the ship for their own personal ghost to be caught.

"Commander!" one of his people called from the office nearest the warp core. "A blackout is approaching Main Engineering."

"How long do we have before we lose power?" La Forge asked professionally, setting aside his annoyance with the extra guards.

"If it maintains present course and speed, it'll be here in two minutes…mark," Lieutenant Hayes said calmly, unflustered by the chief engineer hustling across the room to stand just behind her left shoulder.

"All right, people," Geordi started, raising his voice and rubbing his hands together enthusiastically, caught up in the excitement of the moment now that his role was approaching, "this is it. Shut down all programs and prepare for Blackout Plan Epsilon."

"Aye, aye, sir," they chorused, turning to their consoles and wall panels to save and deactivate whatever varied projects they had been working on or monitoring.

A steady, heavy footfall announced the arrival of Commander Riker. "Ok?" he asked shortly. There really was nothing else to say.

Geordi gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, mouthing 'all set.' Riker smirked back, standing beside him and looking out at the rhythmically pulsing warp core, which lent everything nearby a blue radius.

"What happens to the core when the power goes kaput?" the first officer inquired curiously.

Geordi shrugged. "Last time it just went really dim, but there wasn't enough light to see by for anyone else anyway. Happened like that the time before that…and the time before that, too."

"So it's a safe guess that this time, it'll turn pink?" Riker joked.

"Yep, pretty good chance," La Forge kept it up.

Three and a half seconds all power went out in Main Engineering, and the warp core entirely failed to turn pink.

**

* * *

**

Geordi surveyed Engineering through his VISOR, seeing the entire large room despite the near-complete outage. Although every normal-sighted person in the room could see only complete blackness, his VISOR-augmented sight made darkness a non-entity for the chief engineer.

Born blind, Geordi had received his VISOR, a device that resembled two interlocked combs that had been folded around his head to conceal his eyes more than anything else, when he was five. It gave him better-than-human vision, allowing him to see in more varied ranges than any sighted human ever could. However, anyone not accustomed to the VISOR as he was would see only unfathomable swirls of bright color, whereas Geordi, who couldn't see any other way, easily interpreted the input, translating it into perception of color, presence, heat, radiation such as microwaves, and texture.

At the moment, he could see the engineers clustered in little groups around inactive panels, the slowly pulsing warp core, Worf's security officers stationed all throughout the room, and Riker waiting patiently for his signal.

_What's that?_ La Forge thought suddenly as power flared suddenly across the room. Although the distant, half-obscured panel emitted no light or sound, he could see the energy charging it easily.

He could also 'see' the small figure standing beside it, fingers moving across the direct-contact PADDs with a speed and ease he actually envied. Without pausing, the chief engineer reached out one-handed and laid his hand firmly on the taller first officer's shoulder—the prearranged signal.

"Computer, initiate program Riker-six-delta-zero!" Riker boomed out so fast Geordi was surprised he didn't trip over the words.

Several things happened at once, so close together even Data would have been hard done by to put them in any coherent sequence.

Level ten security forcefields snapped up all around Main Engineering, isolating them completely from the rest of the ship. Nothing and nobody was coming in—and nothing and nobody was going out.

Recently installed, specially shielded spotlights came on all at once, flooding Engineering with bright light from every direction except from the ceiling and floor.

Phasers leapt into the hands of every engineer currently in the room, and bigger, more powerful, and definitely more intimidating phaser rifles appeared on the shoulders of security officers.

One small, startled, black-cloaked intruder spent not an instant being frozen into stillness, and leapt away quicker than even the best shot on board could follow him.

In less time than it had taken Riker to get out, 'Computer, initiate program Riker-six-delta-zero!' Engineering turned into a madhouse of people shooting phasers frantically. Red energy splattered everywhere.

"He can't get far," Riker said with the confidence of ignorance.

The trap was sprung!

* * *

**Author's Note:** Y'know, for a chapter I thought was going to be too short…sheesh! That was probably my longest chapter since 'Poor Wretched Creature,' from "Demons of the Mind." The filler got loose and ran away laughing at me, I guess. Yeah…anyway…please R&R all this unexpected stuff, and I'll see you next chapter, in which they shoot up Engineering. 


	6. Espionage and Subterfuge

**Chapter Six: Espionage and Subterfuge**

**Author's Note: **Thank you everyone who got past the words "Yu Yu Hakusho crossover," especially those out there who just chose to trust me for explanations. (sniff) It touches my heart. Ok…nothing else to say… except sorry that this chapter's been a while in coming.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

Up on Deck One, the comm-link crackled to life.

"Engineering to bridge," Commander Riker's voice hailed.

Captain Picard leaned slightly to the left and tapped a communications panel on the arm of his command chair.

"Go ahead, Number One," he said crisply.

"We've erected the forcefields around Main Engineering." Phaser fire could be heard in the background, and La Forge's voice chimed in.

"Our ghost is definitely here, Captain, and if he is a ghost, which I doubt, he's very skilled with computers."

Picard frowned. "Elaborate."

"He'd restored power to one console; only one, and rigged it to not emit light or sound in human sensory range. Whatever he was doing, it was set to wipe as soon as his hands left the keys. I can't retrieve the data from the console. I didn't get too good a look at him before we switched the lights back on, but the intruder's humanoid, possibly human."

"Try to avoid killing him, we need to know what he's doing here," Picard ordered unnecessarily.

"That's not really a problem, Captain; no one's even managed to get him in their sights yet," Riker told him wryly.

"The forcefields are at full power, completely surrounding Engineering," Geordi said, moving to the master situations board and looking over it; the machinery had restored itself to life not ten seconds ago. "There's no way for him to go very far."

"Understood. Report back once you've taken him into custody," the captain ordered over the commlink. "Picard out."

Riker clicked the intercom and surveyed the huge room. Simply put, it was chaos. Engineers with hand phasers, spooked by inexplicable blackouts, an intruder with the properties of a ghost, and Ten-Forward rumormongers, scattered everywhere, shooting at shadows and trying to avoid getting underfoot of the slightly more disciplined security officers. Already, recently repaired computer panels and the glass and duranium of the walls had been burnt and scorched in multiple places. Most people were shouting all at once, overlapping each other and raising a terrible din, which was abruptly augmented as a stray shot hit a freestanding console. It went up instantly in a flash of flame.

Geordi ducked abruptly as a phaser blast flashed over his head. "Watch where you're aiming that, Reg!" he shouted furiously.

"S-s-sorry, Commander!" Barclay stuttered, phaser trembling in suddenly limp hands, horrified at his mistake. "I th-thought I saw something by the Jefferies Tube…"

"Yeah, the wires for the lights," La Forge snapped back. He knelt to inspect what damage had been done. As he picked up part of the machinery to look it over, he realized that one of the main power lines had been burnt straight through.

"Lieutenant, what setting is your phaser on?" he asked, holding out his hand for the weapon.

"Level Five—middle stun, as ordered." Barclay replied, confused.

"That's odd. Level Five shouldn't be able to cut through a wire like this," he mused, checking the setting and finding it on Level Five, as the cacophony swelled momentarily. "Reg, what _did_ you see?"

"A black blur, like a shadow, only it was gone an instant later," the engineer stuttered, accepting his weapon back.

"Lieutenant, well spotted," Geordi said, rising from his knees to clap him on the back.

"Huh?"

"You see any other shadows like that, fire at will," he continued.

The confused engineer nodded obediently and returned to his post as Geordi headed back to the master situation monitor, where Riker was still standing, having declined to join in the free-for-all.

"This was a bad idea," the second-in-command muttered as something else exploded.

"Hey! Keep those beams away from the core, or we'll all be blown to shreds!" Geordi hollered into the mess as someone's phaser veered a little too close to the warp core. "Engineers, hold your fire! Security, be a little more careful, would you! Sorry, Commander;" he added, "what did you say?"

Riker grimaced and rubbed his ears. "I said that this was a bad idea. We don't even know what we're shooting at, and all they're hitting is each other."

"If we stop, though, all we'll do is give him a chance to get away."

"Yeah; that's why this was a lousy idea." Riker drew his phaser and flipped it idly, catching it in his palm with a thunk.

As he spoke, the sounds of phaser fire and shouting died down, to be replaced with the noise of smoldering computers, low talking, and the steady tread of many boots.

"Thank you," Geordi called.

"Security, to me," Lieutenant Faber snapped over him. Small, wiry, and a dead shot, she was Worf's assistant security chief. Her people clustered around her almost instantaneously, drawn by the Command Tone evident in her voice. As they milled aimlessly around her, obscuring her from vision, her voice could be clearly made out, assigning teams of three to take up positions in the very outskirts of the forcefield-enclosed chambers.

Muttering complaints under his breath, Geordi hurriedly turned to the systems monitor and cut power to the damaged consoles, which ceased throwing sparks everywhere but continued to smoke, turning the already-claustrophobic Engineering compartment into a truly oppressive room. Across the way, Lieutenant Hayes upped the performance on the automatic air filters. Geordi waved to get her attention and mouthed _thank you_ when she looked up, saluting her half-seriously. She gave him a thumbs-up in return before a security squad cut off their view of each other.

Faber situated herself in the middle of the room, setting her face to the entrance. She quickly deployed three of her best to stand around the warp core, the very center of Engineering, at the points of the compass, phasers out.

"Faber to engineering security; begin operation," she said shortly into the commbadge, cutting the channel before having to listen to multiple different versions of 'aye, sir'.

Silence pervaded Engineering, broken only by the occasional sparking computer, the steady tramping off boots, and the ever-present hum of the warp core, which had luckily remained undamaged by the free-for-all. Geordi and Riker watched in anticipation as the patrols came closer and closer. Riker found that he was even holding his breath.

Abruptly, a red beam shot out from the business end of Faber's weapon, accompanied a split second later by a curse and the sounds of a phaser being powered up several notches, lifting the energy to dangerous levels.

Riker took a step, thinking to call out to order her to take care, but before he could say anything, she swung her phaser rifle up to firing position and let it loose again. This time there was a distinct sound of phaser energy striking living flesh, and she let out a victory cry, stopping her people in their tracks as many emerged from Jefferies Tubes and corridors.

"Commander, he's down," she called, leaping for the one-man lift. She rode it upwards, closely followed by La Forge, who took the parallel ladder. The security teams relaxed, most lowering their weapons, except for a few, who headed off after their chief but were waved off impatiently.

The armed engineers, who had been merely bystanders to this last move, sheathed their smaller hand phasers and began trying to re-repair the damage they'd done to their own stations without even being told.

**

* * *

**

Four decks away, he winced as his friend's pain shot through him, communicated unconsciously. _Damn,_ he thought as he bit his lip to avoid making any noise.

**

* * *

**

Geordi scaled the ladder to see Faber kneel by the side of an unconscious form, swathed in black, that was slumped loosely on the hard metal floor. She carefully touched the small figure, then placed two fingers on the side of his throat, assuming he was human to check his pulse. For an instant she looked worried, then nodded.

"He's alive, but out." she said, nodding to the Chief Engineer.

"What did you hit him with?" Geordi asked.

"Heavy Stun didn't even slow him down. I wagered that if I slid it up to 'Kill'…"

"You took a big risk there," Riker chided her, following Geordi close enough to hear this. "The captain insisted that we keep him alive."

"Sorry, sir," she said unrepentantly. As she removed her hand from his shoulder, Geordi joined her on the flooring to examine their prisoner.

He was, in appearance, a very small humanoid; possibly, La Forge thought, human. He had trouble placing his age, but guessed somewhere in human teens. He had black hair that looked like he ran his fingers through it often, with a splash of silverish-white just above the middle of his forehead, which was covered with a white bandana of thick cloth. A black cloak covered him completely.

"He's armed," Faber warned, touching the hilt of a sword. She pulled it from beneath the cloak and examined it. "Japanese katana. I haven't seen one of those since the last time I visited Terra."

"We'd better get him to sickbay," Geordi said. "Maybe he can take a phaser on Kill, but I doubt it, and the captain won't be able to talk to him if he dies of it."

"I'll report to Captain Picard," Commander Riker said, stepping over to the lift.

Geordi tapped his commbadge. "La Forge to Transporter Room 2."

"Transporter Room here," a female voice he didn't know off the top of his head replied.

"Three to beam directly to sickbay."

"Acknowledged. Energizing."

Lieutenant Faber, along with Geordi and their captive, dematerialized in a scatter of blue sparks.

**

* * *

**

Late that evening, Beverly Crusher relaxed in Ten-Forward, sitting at one of the shadowed tables very close to the enormous windows that displayed a panoramic view of the warped starscape ahead. Holding a half-drunk glass of lemonade in one hand, she watched her son Wesley enter the lounge, smiling as a young woman followed him in and he scanned the room looking for her. She waved with the hand that wasn't holding her drink and smiled even wider as he fumbled over his next move. She sipped the rest of her lemonade slowly, waiting for him to decide. Eventually he came across the room to greet her, friend in tow.

"Ah, hi, mom," he said.

"Hello, Wesley. Hello," she added to the girl.

"Oh, right; Mom, this is Cassandra," he said quickly. Cassandra nodded at her and smiled. "Hi."

Beverly broke the developing awkward moment by rising and lifting her glass slightly. "An empty glass. Not good." She left them alone and headed towards Guinan's bar, which took up the entire wall opposite the enormous windows.

About to ask for a refill, she abruptly caught sight of a clock. _22:53… oh! My experiment!_ She hurriedly passed Guinan the glass, made her excuses, and hurried out the double doors.

The turbolift ride seemed unusually slow, although it was most likely only her imagination. When the doors whooshed open on Deck Twelve, she made her way quickly down the corridors, darkened in respect to the ship's night cycle, which was closely patterned on Earth's twenty-four hour day.

She entered her lab quietly, not wanting to disturb the Gamma shift as they went about their own business. Grabbing an empty PADD from a nearby table, she consulted the science computer that had been slaved to her project. It was merely the work of a minute to download and record the information onto her PADD. With that done, and the next step initiated, which took slightly longer, she adjourned to her office to cross-reference a variable.

Sitting down at her desk, she activated her computer. It flickered to life slowly, but brought up her information as programmed. She fed the information in carefully, and it displayed a 'processing new data' screen. As it worked, Beverly rose and stretched, rubbing her eyes. Realizing that the automatically bright lights were hurting her dim-accustomed eyes, she switched them all the way off. She scanned sickbay, or as much of it as she could see from her office. The isolation ward caught the tail of her eye, and she looked over at it.

The area was dark; the only light cast was from the computer monitors and from the powerful forcefield over the threshold. Lieutenant Faber's prisoner, the rumored 'ghost', had not yet woken. Dr. Crusher had not been able to identify even _what_ he was, and security, especially Worf, had pushed for guards. Almost everyone in sickbay had protested. In the past, security guards had been merely underfoot, and rarely served any purpose. They'd compromised with the isolation ward.

She was about to go back to her computer when a brief increase in light keyed her in to the other entrance to the ward, the one that was supposedly triple computer-locked, opening. It stayed open for only a brief second, but that was enough.

Staying perfectly still and quiet, she squinted hard but could only make out the vaguest outline; a man or teenage boy, who reached out to touch the small captive on the shoulder.

"'I won't get caught,' you said," the newcomer murmured. "I don't suppose you care to explain this?"

To Crusher's surprise, the prisoner sat up, clearly awake, to no reaction from the state-of-the-art monitors that had been programmed to tell her if he regained consciousness.

"I suppose you haveanexplanation already," he retorted quietly.

"So what happened?"

"The engineer, the blind one."

"Ah." Apparently no further information was required.

"My sword?"

"Yes." If that meant that he had it with him, they were standing too close together for Crusher to see the weapon change hands.

"What next?"

"We try something different. I'm not leaving you in here for the rest of the voyage."

"So we come out into the open?"

"That's the next plan."

"It's going to go wrong."

At that point, Beverly couldn't stand it anymore. Without thinking it through, she flicked the lights on and leapt to the threshold of the isolation ward, to see…

Nothing. No one. Her captive was unconscious on the bed, the monitors showing no change at any time. The young man who had gotten in so impossibly had vanished as quickly as he had come. And when she walked around to check the lock on the other door, it showed that it had never been opened.

Surveillance tapes were blank.

"I'm going crazy," she said bleakly, and sat down at her desk. She never even noticed the light touch on a certain nerve, nor did she smell the odd powder that she inhaled as she slumped forward on her desk unconscious.

By next morning she would remember nothing except falling asleep over her work.

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Ok, everyone who's seriously confused, raise your hand! (counts) Wow, I'd better explain some stuff soon. When I check my plans (yes, I have the entire story planned out) I find "explanations" spread out between the next three chapters, so don't leave yet. One thing I probably won't have the chance to explain later: yes, Kurama did just nerve-pinch her. For everything else, in the words of the window washer, all will be made clear…I've said that before.

If anyone cares, the 'Conversation In the Shadows' scene was one of the two original images that sparked this story. The other was a YYH picture Kokoro Sabishii sent me, entitled 'looks like Star Wars in the background'. It did, too.

The title could also be read as 'Spies and Deceptions' although I liked the published version better. Oh, and I'm so not good at descriptions, but I am trying. Anyone who doesn't know what Hiei and Kurama look like and isn't happy with my lame descriptions can look them up on Google Image; there are tons of pictures.


	7. Confrontations

**Chapter Seven: Confrontations**

**Disclaimer: **Let's play 'Let's Pretend." Let's pretend that I own Star Trek. And then we'll pretend that I also own Yu Yu Hakusho and have just discovered how to draw more than stick figures. And while we're at it, let's also pretend that Earth is really Mars and there's no such thing as cell phones. Sure…

**Author's Note: **Thank you, people who are actually reading this. I bow to you all, whoever you all are. I can't believe I'm writing this story. Second, I know this took me a while, I suppose; note that I never abandon a story. Never. I finish what I start. It may take me a while, because of school (oh boy, I'm back at school now) or computer problems (I hate my keyboard, but it seems to be fixed now), but I don't ditch stories. Oh, yes, and a big thank you to **Kokoro Sabishii**. Thanks for the loan of the Yu Yu Hakusho movie…I needed it for their voice patterns. I _will_ eventually give it back; please tolerate my monopoly for the time being. Anyway…

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

That mystical force, that Riker had once claimed watched over fools, little girls, and ships called _Enterprise_, had deserted them again. Or perhaps it had merely made a deal with Coyote the Trickster (or conceivably Q) and was on vacation for the time being.

Whatever the cause, a nice easy trip to Lima Sierra while playing charter bus was clearly out of the question. Although the technical failures had been explained as the work of one, presumably lone, saboteur, the voyage had clearly, according to the Ten-Forward gossips, been jinxed from the start.

And now, to make things even worse, it was raining.

Not literally, of course. But a rash of ion storms had made for a bumpy ride, long shifts, grumpy crewmembers, and, as a result of all that, more mistakes. This meant more time correcting them.

The storms lasted two days before they could escape at low warp.

"Number One, status report," Picard said wearily as the ion storms boiled away behind them.

Riker reeled off a computer-written summary of dozens of tedious reports from all over the ship. At the end, his superior sighed heavily.

"Anything that needs attending to now?"

His first officer checked the console again. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Can it wait ten minutes?" Picard was not normally a procrastinator, but the last few days had been hectic.

"Dr. Crusher and Mr. Worf both want to know when you'll be interrogating our saboteur," he replied.

"Hasn't he woken yet?" the captain asked with mild surprise, having been, of course, fully briefed.

"No sir."

"Very well then, I'll speak to her. You have the bridge, Number One, I'll be in my ready room."

Picard rose and swept off the command center into his own personal sanctum. Upon hearing the doors whoosh closed behind him, he strode over to his private replicator.

"Tea, Earl Grey—hot." he ordered the replicator sharply.

After a few ominous seconds, in which the unit warbled and flashed hesitantly, a steaming mug of tea materialized in the dispenser area. Picard picked it up gratefully and cradled it in between his hands. Savoring the warmth and smell of his favorite drink, he turned to stare out the window that at last showed open space instead of the turbulent yellow gases of the storms, and at his lionfish, Livingston, which swam unconcernedly through its tank. Once his cup was empty, he tapped his commbadge, feeling quite revitalized.

"Picard to Doctor Crusher," he hailed.

"Captain, good afternoon," she greeted him, sounding far happier than he would have ever expected. "How are things up there?"

"Better," he replied honestly. "Are you busy in sickbay right now? Commander Riker tells me I've forgotten about the ghost." Somehow the term had crept into everyone's vocabulary.

"Yes, you have. But don't worry, everyone else down here almost has too."

"Still no change?"

"No, nothing." In the background, the faint sound of a computer terminal being plied filtered through the intercom connection, and Picard guessed that she was checking the readings. "He hasn't regained consciousness, nor does he show any sign of ever doing so. I have a theory that it's self-induced, like Vulcans use for dealing with pain. The sensors have been getting some pretty _strange_ readings, but they're perfectly stable."

"So somehow he senses that he's threatened, and is using the coma as a defense?" Picard mused, trying to follow the theory to its conclusion.

"Right. I can bring him out of it with drugs, but…"

"We don't need him awake until we needed more information. I apologize for the delay, but with the storms threatening the whole ship-"

"The ship took priority, I know," the doctor replied, cutting him off in her turn.

"I'm coming down now," he informed her. "I'd bring Lieutenant Worf, but I need him at the weapons just in case. We received a report from Command that there's been an increase in vanishing ships in this area in the last few months; supposedly the work of a fanatic religious group with the firepower to back up their rules. Lieutenant Faber will be accompanying me."

"Understood, I'll be ready for you in five minutes or less," Crusher responded. "Sickbay out."

Captain Picard tapped his commbadge again, a redundant habit as the channel had already been closed, but one adopted by many as it gave a sense of closure to the conversation. Depositing his empty tea mug in the replicator, where it shimmered out of being unobtrusively, he summoned Lt. Faber to sickbay through the intercom, and departed in that direction himself, with a nod and a signal to remain seated to Will Riker as he passed through.

When he emerged from the turbolift on Deck Twelve, one of the first things he saw was Ashley Faber waiting impatiently (but trying not to show it) by the doors to Sickbay, but far enough away for them not to slide open automatically. She nodded respectfully, and he returned the greeting.

"Lieutenant Faber, I don't believe I've congratulated you yet," he said pleasantly.

"Sir? I don't understand."

"From what Mr. La Forge and Commander Riker tell me, you're pretty good with a phaser. The way they told it, you were the heroine of the hour."

She smiled reservedly. "Thank you, Captain."

They entered Sickbay, Faber a little behind her captain, as was appropriate. He glanced around the room, to see that Dr. Crusher was off to one side, with her back to them, talking to one of her nurses. Her blue-green eyes flickered towards them as they entered, but continued her conversation as if nothing had happened.

"Hello, Captain," a soft voice greeted them. "Hello, Ashley."

"Hello, Counselor," he replied reservedly as Deanna joined them. Faber briefly dropped the pose of big bad security guard to give the Betazoid a shy smile.

"Right with you, Captain," Beverly called, wrapping up her discussion. She handed a medical tricorder from a passing cart to her assistant, and he took it and vanished into another room. She dusted her hands briskly as she weaved between the beds and carts of Sickbay.

"Ready?" Deanna asked her.

"Just about," the doctor replied, lifting a pre-loaded hypospray from the cart nearest her office. Adding a handful of other varied cylinders to the pocket of her long blue lab coat, she slipped the hypospray into her pocket as well and nodded to her companions.

"All right. Let's get this mess cleared up," she said briskly, as they moved the short few steps to the forcefield that composed the door to the makeshift brig. Her fingers darted across the wall-mounted computer PADD, and the energy field sizzled away.

Lieutenant Faber drew her weapon as they stepped across the threshold and the forcefield reestablished itself. Dr. Crusher pulled the loaded hypospray from her pocket and nodded to the captain, who nodded back. With a deep breath, she placed the device at the small figure's throat and pressed the button. It hissed slightly, and she stepped back.

Perhaps three seconds passed before he stirred, fingers barely twitching. The ridiculous readings on the monitors changed abruptly, wailing for attention before the red-haired doctor slapped them, muting the noise quite efficiently.

"Can you hear me?" Deanna asked.

"A foolish question." His voice was flat and completely without emphasis or accent, although perfectly clear.

The Betazoid stretched out her empathic senses, curious. Her mental probe hit a solid wall that crackeled with hostile energy. With a gasp, she was rocketed back into her own mind.

One red eye opened and regarded her in a very unfriendly fashion.

_Don't try that again. Next time I'll hurt you._

"Yes, yes," she breathed, head throbbing. "No more mind probes." That had hurt. If that was his idea of '_next_ time it will hurt,' she did not want to be on the receiving end of the 'next time.'

"Deanna?" Beverly asked anxiously, reaching out to her friend.

"Careful, Captain; he's a powerful telepath," she warned him, regaining her self-control.

"I don't react favorably to you attacking my officers," he said sternly to the figure seated cross-legged on the biobed. When had he sat up? Picard couldn't remember.

They stared at each other.

"Really."

"Yes. I don't react favorably to stowaways and saboteurs, either," the captain continued. "Who are you and what are you doing on board my ship?"

"I don't answer to you."

"Who do you answer to?"

"No one."

The conversation was considered closed on one side. Picard frowned somewhat as their prisoner snapped his eyes closed again, and, to all intents and purposes, ignored them completely. He looked over at his counselor and she shook her head.

"Captain, I don't believe you'll get anywhere just interrogating him like this. I daren't try another probe, but some things you don't need telepathy to know."

The captain scowled outright. "Very well, we'll try something else. Doctor, what are the laws regarding truth drugs in a case like this?"

"Shaky, Captain, in most cases, but there are many precedents, including uses of the Vulcan mindmeld."

"True. Is that an option now?"

"I was under the impression that you humans do not consider your subordinates disposable." There was a faint crackle under the word 'humans' that indicated the Universal Translators in their commbadges had replaced his original word with the Federation Standard.

"Captain, he's not bluffing," the Betazoid said quickly. "I've never encountered a telepath so strong."

"Too bad we're too far from Betazed," Doctor Crusher said with a conspiratorial smile. "We could turn Lwaxana loose on him."

Captain Picard visibly winced. "Without that choice," the word _luckily_ went unsaid, "we're left with force. Doctor, do you have a chemical amounting to a truth serum?"

"Yes sir," she said, replacing the cylinder in her hypospray. "I believe I do."

"Use it," he ordered curtly.

Their captive opened his eyes again and proceeded to stare her down. Faber, seeing a potential threat, brandished her phaser more openly.

Beverly evaded the crimson stare and reached out to drug him before he tried to get away. Not that he could go far…

"Stop."

The voice was not at all familiar to any of the Starfleet officers. They turned, startled, to the door in the far wall, which had been opened.

Standing just inside was the form of a child that Crusher and Troi recognized.

"Sean?" Deanna and Beverly chorused almost in baffled unison.

The blond put his head on one side, an almost Data-like movement, staring at them. "I can't let you do that."

"I don't understand!" Deanna exclaimed. "I thought-"

"I was mute and simple-minded?"

"Well, yes," she admitted. Recalling the sensation she'd received when last she'd used her empathy on him, she reached out again. Once again, she slid over glass walls, walls that she now realized were clever shields.

"Sean is. But really, I suppose, Sean doesn't exist."

His form blurred, faded, changed. In the blond child's place stood a taller young man with long red hair that grew past his shoulders, standing completely at his ease with his hands in the pockets of his blue and gold tunic. Beneath it, he wore white. "He's someone I made up." His voice had changed from a higher child's register to a much older, calm voice.

"And who are you?" Picard demanded.

"Hello, Captain," the newcomer replied. "I apologize. I thought we could slip by you and yours, but it appears we underestimated you. Please believe me when I say that we mean you no harm. My name is Kurama; this is Hiei." One hand emerged from the pocket to flicker briefly in the other's direction.

"There are two of you?" Ashley Faber demanded, trying to aim her weapon at both at once; a difficult task as they were standing at opposite ends of the room.

"Actually, there's one of me and one of him." If he was trying to be annoying with his literal answers, he was going to manage it in a few minutes.

"Yes, I see that. How many others are going to appear out of nowhere on my ship, and must I repeat myself again? What are you doing here?"

Kurama fixed his eyes on the captain alone, and Picard had a strong feeling that whatever was coming next, if not an outright lie, was at least evasion of the truth. "We're after Fenell too. He's a threat to us."

The captain's instinct about being lied to was fading steadily. Either he was the worst liar Picard had ever met…or the best. But before he could ask more questions, or order them both arrested, both strangers twitched, as if tensing for battle. A split second later, Riker's voice came across the intercom.

"Captain, you're needed on the bridge, immediately." The stress in his voice was pronounced. The captain barely hesitated.

"I'm on my way. What's the problem?"

"A flotilla of ships has taken up potentially hostile position off our port bow. They demand to speak to you at once."

"Understood, Picard out."

All other concerns had been put on hold, but the sight of two pairs of bright eyes, one pair crimson, the other bright green, brought back his current problem.

"Lieutenant, stay here. Keep these two here until this is resolved, though I should just throw you in the brig." This last was addressed at Kurama and Hiei.

"Aye, sir," she said instantly, all but snapping to attention.

"Counselor, please join me," Picard said as he deactivated the forcefield door. The Betazoid followed him.

The instant they had left sickbay, Kurama, blithely ignoring the phaser aimed at him, turned and stepped through the still-open second door. Behind him, Hiei made a snatch at seemingly empty air on the bulkhead, and a black sword that Faber recognized shimmered into view. Before she could do much more than swing her weapon back at him, he vanished to appear beside the red-head, who absently closed the reinforced door behind them. In less than three seconds, both had vanished.

With a cry of shock, Beverly leapt to the door and frantically tapped in the triple sequence of opening codes. It bleeped at her obediently after a short pause, but by the time they got it open, neither was anywhere to be seen, not unexpectedly.

Faber swore fluently, jamming her phaser back into its holster with unnecessary vigor. Dr. Crusher couldn't help but agree, but when the lieutenant lifted her hand to tap her commbadge and alert the rest of Security, the doctor stopped her.

"No, don't. I don't know why, but I believe them. Something rang true about that."

**

* * *

**

Picard strode onto the bridge without showing any of his internal frustration. Managing to put it to one side for the time being, he stepped down to his command chair, which Riker surrendered to him automatically. His attention was instantly drawn to the figure on the viewscreen, which was staring at him with giant, yet potentially hostile, eyes.

The person on the other end of the commlink would have seemed ridiculous if he hadn't had a substantial fleet at his back. With huge baby blue eyes that dominated his entire face and pale robes that reflected said eyes, he seemed more like a lost high priest of some obscure pastoral religion than a starfaring traveler in command of an armada. The image of saintly benevolence was only further encouraged by his constant clasping and re-clasping of his hands in front of him, grasping a string of beads that blinked and whistled quietly.

"Greetings," Picard began. "I am Captain Picard of the _Starship Enterprise_, a Federation starship. Who might I be addressing?"

"Yes, we know who you are, _Enterprise_, Captain. We are the Lhyarri people, and this ship that I speak from is the _Seek_. I am _Seek_-Shepherd. You must forgive our show of hostility, but these are dangerous times. We have not come to threaten you, though you have already violated many of our laws. Instead, we offer forgiveness in exchange for a suitable penance. You will aid us."

Picard took a mental deep breath. Religious fanatics were not high on his list of priorities right now, and although the _Enterprise_ could probably out-gun the Lhyarri flotilla, even outnumbered as she was, it was best to avoid a fight. "We are on an urgent mission to help alleviate these dangers you mention, _Seek_-Shepherd." Presumably, it was a title and not a name. "Will you let us pass in peace?"

_Seek_-Shepherd scowled benevolently. "The seers of my people have seen from afar the presence of a great evil in this sector. You carry the evil at your bosom even now. It has corrupted you to where you have violated our laws to this great degree. Surrender it to us that we may exorcize it, and you may go in peace and serenity."

The captain had never been very religious, and he was having a difficult time stripping _Seek_-Shepherd's words down to where they made sense to him. "_Seek_-Shepherd, I don't understand. What is it you believe we are carrying?"

The answer came abruptly as a turbolift door whisked softly closed at the back of the bridge. "Inari-sama," a voice that was becoming unwelcomely familiar breathed softly, a tinge of annoyance very clear. "How did they track us all the way out here?"

On the viewscreen, _Seek_-Shepherd's huge blue eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and he stumbled backwards, away from the viewscreen on his end. He frantically waved the flashing beads around between him and the two new arrivals on the bridge.

"Captain!" he shrieked, "You must protect yourself and your people!"

Picard turned completely around, leaving _Seek_-Shepherd gibbering in the background, and shot the red-haired teen and his smaller shadow a death glare that pinned ensigns to the bulkheads. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to be affected. "Get off my bridge," he near-snarled.

"Of course," Kurama agreed, and perversely ignored what he'd just said, flickering one hand at the viewscreen and the hysterical _Seek_-Shepherd negligently. "Captain, would you like them run off?"

"Run off?" Riker said. "Captain? Who are these people? Wait a second! I recognize you!"

"I'm so happy for you," Hiei droned, sounding anything but. Dismissing the commander, he looked straight up at the screen, locking eyes with _Seek_-Shepherd. "Enough," he ordered harshly, and the captain of _Seek_'s mouth snapped shut with an audible click. "Better. Now go away. You annoy us."

"Nabuhari," the red-head chimed in, "You have a very short time until we come over there."

"No! Begone, demons of the void! Come not near my people!"

"Not a problem, as long as you stay away from us," he continued. "Now go. You _do_ annoy us."

_Seek_-Shepherd—Nabuhari?—continued to gibber and wave his beads around for a brief moment, until Hiei raised one hand. If this was a threat of some supernatural retribution, it worked. The alien priest (which indeed he was) cut himself off with a cry of 'we will not tolerate this!' before his voice moved up the register into an undignified squeak, and he closed the channel. Moments later, the entire Lhyarri fleet boiled into motion like a kicked anthill, and vanished at warp speed in several multicolored flashes.

Riker summed everything up when he said, "I think I speak for everyone when I say: Who the _hell_ are you, and _what is going on_?"

**

* * *

Author's Note: While talking to my brother not long ago, I realized just how much trouble I have talking about any anime or manga series without using associated Japanese words. Those of you familiar with YYH and various related terms can skip this; TNG people should probably take note because I _will_ be using these words somewhat frequently, although I'll try not to overuse them. It's just the English sounds so _corny_ if overused. If I think of others later on, I'll try to add a note at the bottom on the translation. I don't have every detail fixed, and my stories tend to have a life of their own. _Especially_ this one, as proved by this chapter. Right, words I will definitely use:** While talking to my brother not long ago, I realized just how much trouble I have talking about any anime or manga series without using associated Japanese words. Those of you familiar with YYH and various related terms can skip this; TNG people should probably take note because I be using these words somewhat frequently, although I'll try not to overuse them. It's just the English sounds so if overused. If I think of others later on, I'll try to add a note at the bottom on the translation. I don't have every detail fixed, and my stories tend to have a life of their own. this one, as proved by this chapter. Right, words I will definitely use: 

_Kitsune: _fox, fox-demon. Alternately, _youko_, although if capitalized it means some_one_. I don't think _he'll_ be in this, but you never know.

_Koorime: _Would it sound pathetic if I said I wasn't _exactly_ sure? Ice-demon, ice-spirit…something like that, anyway.

_Jaganshi: _a…title, I guess. Literal translation; Master of the Evil Eye (_Jagan_, evil eye), more explanation on that later.

_Youkai:_ demon.

_Makai, Ningenkai, Reikai:_ the names for the three 'worlds' commonly referred to in Yu Yu Hakusho. Translations: Demon World, Human World, Spirit World, respectively.

_Ningen_: as is probably obvious from above entry, Japanese for 'human'.

_Inari-sama:_ In one of my favorite YYH stories (_Kitsune's Brother_, great story, link in my favorites, ignore the romance warning because you _can't_ tell, go read it), Kurama swears by and makes a few references to "Inari-sama", whom I presume is a demon god or goddess. I liked the sound of it, so I'll be using it here.

I can't think of any more right now that I'm sure I'll be using. See you next chapter, which will depend on how long my keyboard keeps working or the next time I can be up past midnight on Mom's computer…which is throwing a fit over all these terms. Poor spell check.


	8. Questions

**Chapter Eight: Questions**

**Author's Note:** To **grayangle**: Thank you so much for your reviews; they make me think about the next chapter! I really value your insights on plot-holes that need filling. I will try my absolute hardest to fill everything that needs it, and your reviews are a big help. Just wanted to acknowledge that. And to **Ginevra**! Thank you, I never would have known that.

Oh, and on a different note: I'm so happy! This story is in a C2! This was my reaction, word for word, when I found out: "Do you hear the heavenly music?" (strikes pose) "Oh, wait, that's _Phantom of the Opera_…oops. Close, but no banana. I hate bananas…" This is only the second story out of my at-the-moment eight that has been accepted into one, and the funny thing is, they're both crossovers. Weird huh? Maybe I need to write more crossovers. (checks plans) No, there is _way_ too much on my drawing board at the moment.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

_"I think I speak for everyone when I say: Who the **hell** are you, and **what is going on**?"_

"That is a question I would also like answered," Worf rumbled, backing up Riker's statement.

"The Lhyarri," the red-haired teen explained, nodding towards the viewscreen and the vanished fleet. "They don't like demons…actually, they don't like us specifically. I suppose they weren't expecting to actually find _us_, though I wonder who they thought they'd find…" He glanced over at his companion, who shook his head.

"That's not what I asked," Riker protested, rising to his feet from his chair. "What are you talking about—what do you mean, demons? Who are you, and how did you get on board?"

"That's a lot of questions, Commander. Which one would you like answered first?"

Picard had to admire his courage, irritated though the captain was. Standing completely at his ease with only one companion at his side, with the entire bridge crew radiating hostility and confusion, he still maintained at least the premise of poise.

"I think you'd better start from the beginning," the captain intervened, motioning to his Number One and security chief to stand down. "Who and what are you—both?"

A patient sigh, and another cursory round of one-sided introductions—they clearly knew the entire bridge crew. "As to what we are…do you believe in demons?"

"No," said the practical Data.

"Unfortunately for you, it doesn't matter whether you believe in us or not; here we are," Hiei told him.

"Demons?" Riker said skeptically. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Kurama thought about it for a brief moment, evidently trying to translate a reality he took for granted into words that would make sense to the science-oriented Starfleet crew. "Life-forms with…inhuman abilities, I suppose; although that's not completely accurate, it's close enough. As to how we got on board, that was rather simple, actually, and not a story worth telling."

_Yeah, sure,_ Riker thought warily. _You don't want to tell us. It's a tactical advantage._

"Explain your influence over the Lhyarri," Picard commanded.

"They're afraid of us," the smaller demon said with a half-shrug. "We crossed paths about thirty-five years ago, and we've made a point of avoiding them for their own good."

"Thirty-five years?" Deanna asked. "I find that hard to believe."

As neither visitor looked much over twenty at the most, her confusion was easy to believe.

"We don't age at the same rate as humans, or, indeed, most other races," Kurama explained, with a sideways small grin, no doubt at Troi's indirect compliment. "Actually, it was thirty-six years ago."

His companion rolled his red eyes, but made no comment on that.

"A moment," Picard interrupted. He tapped his commbadge. "Dr. Crusher, Mr. La Forge, please report to Conference Room A immediately." A second tap closed the channel, and he gestured his senior staff towards the door opposite the back turbolift, not waiting to see if the demons would follow. "Mr. Crusher, you have the bridge."

"Aye, sir!" Wesley almost yelped, snapping to seated attention at the helm.

**

* * *

**

Dr. Crusher, being half a ship closer, arrived first, looking unsurprised when she saw the demons, who had seated themselves calmly at the far end of the table.

"I should have guessed," she said wryly, addressing Kurama directly.

"You did, though, didn't you?"

"Actually, yes."

Picard cleared his throat as a puzzled Geordi entered quietly, silence no doubt encouraged by Riker's cut-his-throat gesture as he entered, and sat down in one of the high-backed chairs. "Ahem." The quiet sound of everyone shifting in their chairs to face him was the only sound as he sat down in his chair at the head of the elongated conference table.

"Thank you. Let me recap the events of the last few minutes," Picard addressed his officers, verbally sorting everything out. "The fleet in this sector of space, reported by Starfleet Command, rendezvoused with us not ten minutes ago. They, the Lhyarri people, hailed us and commanded we surrender a 'great evil,' if I remember correctly, over to them. Before we could explain that we knew nothing of what they were talking about, these two appeared on the bridge, and frightened them off. Coincidentally enough," he added, for the benefit of those who hadn't put it together by now, "they happen to be our 'intruders' of the last week. I assume," he said in an aside, "you are responsible for the blackouts?"

"Those were for a good reason, Captain, but yes, you are essentially correct."

"Wait, wait," Geordi broke in. He pointed at Hiei. "You weren't operating on your own?"

"Clearly."

The finger swung a short distance sideways to point at Kurama. "Then where have _you_ been all this time? Why didn't our sensors pick up on you?"

The redhead shrugged. "For the same reason you didn't spot Hiei: we deleted our bioscans from the main computer. Unless a portable scanning device such as a tricorder or surgical scanner is focused on one of us, we are for all intents and purposes invisible. In the event of that actually happening, I can project an illusion of unaffected readings, and wipe them from the database later. And, of course, we simply stayed out of sight. Incidentally, one person did get a glimpse of me, but I wiped her memory. Obviously, she's no worse for wear." Green eyes slid sideways to smirk slightly at Dr. Crusher, who sat up, startled. "I've been down in the cargo bay," he resumed, "in the form of a certain mute twelve-year-old."

"How could you have hacked into the main computer to that degree?" La Forge complained. "There's only three people on board who can do that, and I'm one of them."

Kurama smiled faintly. "Let's just say I've had a talent for working with computers for a long time. It's not all that far from the truth."

"So why are you here, anyway?" Riker broke in. "If you've gone to all that trouble, there must be a reason for it all."

"Actually, there is," Hiei told him emotionlessly. "We happen to have the same reason: Fenell and his infernium. That story goes way back, and I'm not telling it. That's the kitsune's problem. He likes dealing with people, hell knows why."

"Kitsune?" Geordi asked curiously.

Data chipped in. "The word is Japanese in origin, and refers to a mythological creature, an enchanted or demonic fox. They are tricksters and shapechangers, and—"

"Ok, enough, Data," La Forge cut him off. "That's way more than I wanted to know, but it doesn't answer my question. He means…"

"Me. That's what I am, and he's gotten into the habit of calling me that.

"It seems, as usual, Hiei's left me with all the talking. He's right, though. Explaining Fenell means explaining quite a lot more than we normally would. To begin, then," he started, evidently noticing that Picard, who took intruders, even beneficial ones, as a personal affront, was running out of patience, "the basic structure of the universe, the way _we_ know it—and I'm not off subject, this is important.

"There are three worlds—planes of reality, perhaps. One; the human world, Ningenkai," the universal translator let this pass, "this plane, containing Mars, Tokyo, Alpha Centauri, Vulcan, Starfleet Headquarters—in essence, everywhere humans and related races can access, whether by starship or your own two feet. Two; Makai, the Demon World. We're both originally from there…sort of, in my case, but that's not relevant. Actually, in this situation, _Makai_ is fairly irrelevant, but it's still there. Its only purpose in this event is to establish that yes, demons exist. They may go by other names, but they exist. Third; the spirit world, Reikai—the world of mythological creatures, the dead, and assorted spiritual beings. These beings are the other players in this game—the Lhyarri are from Reikai, originally." The universal translator, fickle at best, had apparently decided that the three Japanese terms were names, correctly, and wasn't translating them.

"So how did the Lhyarri get here?" Riker asked.

Another half-smile. The redhead leaned his chin on the back of one open hand, propping his elbow on the glossy table, looking, again, completely at his ease. Whether on purpose or not, he was an exact contrast with his companion, who sat on the edge of his chair warily, expressionless under the unrelenting gazes of the _Enterprise _crew.

"You're getting ahead of us, Commander. It is possible to travel between the three worlds, with skill or a guide. The focal point is centered on Earth, as it happens. There is a certain degree of interaction, of course. Makai and the Reikai are both fully aware of the two other worlds, but in Ningenkai, the reality of the other planes is kept under cover. Few humans ever learn of the existence of the other worlds, and many who do believe it to be a pretty story, at best. Some, of course, live abnormal lives in full awareness, and they're often involved heavily with the course of events in the other worlds."

"And the Lhyarri?" Worf rumbled.

"Not to be diverted, I see. Ah, well. Simply put, the Lhyarri are emigrants from the Spirit World. They left almost three hundred years ago, and drifted out to this sector of space. They had their own peculiar cult that took the oddest and most troublesome aspect of many human religions, and the Lhyarri began to become a problem. The ruler of Spirit World told them very bluntly to get out or stop causing trouble. They eventually left, once humankind had started traveling through space. With warp drive, they could get as far away as they liked, and amuse themselves with their rituals and requirements somewhere out of Reikai and Makai's influence. Demons, Captain, do not enjoy space travel as a rule, especially those of elemental power. The sheer emptiness repels them."

"So how are you involved in all this, if you'd rather not be in space?" Dr. Crusher asked, sitting up in her chair and leaning forward. "You mentioned infernium. Am I to understand that you also have a mission to dispose of it?"

"Hm…that sounds right, albeit a self-assigned mission. And although space might not be our preferred medium, three-hundred-odd years is enough time to acclimatize anyone to anything. But infernium, Doctor, has a far more adverse effect on demons than it does on humans. In fact, it is invariably fatal within a certain range. Luckily for us, it's only a fifteen-foot range."

"We're doing this out of self-interest."

Kurama smiled at his friend, and Deanna Troi briefly sensed something between them, perhaps telepathy. Due to her prior encounter with Hiei's power, she thought that might be so. Did they converse silently throughout all discussions? She thought that might explain Kurama's frequent usage of the term 'we' instead of 'I.'

"We really should be grateful to you for scaring off the Lhyarri," she said kindly. "Why are they afraid of you?"

"That would be the result of a mistake, pure and simple. We happened upon them, as we said, thirty-six years ago, and decided to investigate."

"_We_ decided to investigate? _You_ decided you were going to go stick your nose in, and dragged me along."

"You came, didn't you? Unfortunately, the Lhyarri are still spirit beings, and, as such, have long memories and a greater ability to sense a demon's presence. They are fanatics at any time, and their new leader, Nabuhari, had just issued a royal decree condemning the existence of all demons. At any other time, that would be redundant, since the demons that do exist in Ningenkai are so deeply hidden that it is near-impossible for a mortal to expose them. Nabuhari, however, has tremendous spiritual energy for a Lhyarri, which enabled him to find us."

"You fought them," Riker said with a grin.

Kurama nodded. "They've been afraid of us ever since, especially Nabuhari. Why he dared to challenge the _Enterprise_, knowing we were on board, is a mystery. It's possible he wasn't aware that _we_ were accompanying you, only that a demon was present. Their fleet was definitely not prepared to challenge us."

"I am curious," Data said, the prelude to many of his sentences. "Will your powers cross a vacuum? You stated earlier that you were not adapted to life in space. How were you intending to confront them?"

"You play poker, I believe, Commander?" Again, the slight smile, this one with a hint of mirth. "We were simply bluffing. Had they not backed off, we had no plans beyond intimidation."

"You put my ship at great risk."

"A fleet of Lhyarri ships staring you down _is_ risk," Hiei snapped bluntly at Captain Picard. "They're fools, but their ships' weapons are powerful."

"So are the hand-held weapons," Kurama muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Is Fenell and _Alameda_ connected with the Lhyarri in any way?" Data asked.

Before Kurama could answer, the smaller demon cut in. "Of course. Fenell has been behind the Lhyarri since the moment they began. Some idiot—Nabuhari—" he rolled his eyes, "revived him."

"Revived him?" Picard asked sharply, thinking privately that his crew was beginning to sound like a set of echoes.

"Yes. In the early days of the Lhyarri, the prince of Reikai decided to have him assassinated. The effort came very close to succeeding, and would have had not his followers found his body and put him into cryostasis. They took the stasis chamber with them as a type of holy object when they shifted their base to Nizukami."

"That is, their home planet," the kitsune chipped in.

"Nabuhari kept abreast of medical technologies in the rest of the galaxy," Hiei continued, completely ignoring his partner, "and used his knowledge to restore Fenell, who now operates on his own, but has the entire fanatic force of the Lhyarri behind him if he calls on it. And after today, they will put two and two together—"

At that precise moment, the lights went out.

La Forge groaned. The counselor gasped in surprise. Picard opened his mouth to give the demons a piece of his mind. Worf growled.

"Oops," Kurama said casually. "It seems we forgot to turn the timer off. A deadman's switch is useful, but not when one gets distracted."

"Oops!" La Forge protested. "Do you have any idea how inconvenient these little blackouts of yours have been? And now we have to sit here in the dark until the power is restored, because without the computer, there's no way to turn it off!"

"Fool. We're not that clumsy." Even in the darkness, lit only by the light of the stars, which had elongated into long lines as the ship entered warp speed some time ago, the _Enterprise_ senior staff could see Hiei rise and move over to one of the wall-mounted computer panels. Using the same sequence of keys Geordi had seen him use in Main Engineering, he proceeded to activate the computer, which was, of course, theoretically impossible. With the universal translator inoperative along with the main computer, no one except, perhaps, Data understood the brief conversation between the two demons, which was in rapid Japanese. Half of it appeared to be addressed to the ship itself.

With a _buzz _and then _chirp_, the lights and power were restored to Conference Room A, and, presumably, the rest of the affected area.

"You don't need to worry about the outages any longer," Kurama said calmly. "The program has been removed."

"I have got to get a look at that program," La Forge muttered.

"And erased."

"Oh."

Abruptly, Commander Riker yawned. "Sorry," he said quickly, covering his mouth embarrassedly. "It's just been a very long and busy day."

"Quite all right, Number One, I sympathize," said Picard in an aside to him. He rose from his chair at the head of the table, signaling the end of the meeting. "Thank you for enlightening us," he told their visitors, who had also risen, formally. "It appears I have no choice but to accept your gracious offer of assistance." He disregarded the fact that he had been very neatly maneuvered into having no other choice whatsoever.

The senior staff got up also, following their captain's lead. "Dismissed," he told them all curtly. He needed a break also. "Counselor Troi, will you relieve Mr. Crusher of command of the bridge?"

"I'd be delighted to, Captain," she said briskly, remaining as calm as ever, showing no sign of fatigue.

The crew filed out of the two doors as Picard watched, noting that Commander Riker took the time to speak a few words to Kurama and Hiei. The former nodded and replied in an undertone; the latter said nothing, preferring to leave the interaction to his partner.

_A good turn of events, as it has turned out so far, _Captain Picard thought ruefully as he made his way to his own quarters. _We know a lot more about what and whom we're up against now. Captains have been taking on native guides for millennia—another convention. Traditions seem to haunt ships called _Enterprise…

**

* * *

**

_**Author's Note: **_All right! Finally! Sorry about the wait…I could trot out all the excuses, prevalent among them being HIGH SCHOOL, but I won't. Please tell me if people start to get out of character, and, if so, I'll mooch DVDs and/or books off Kokoro to get their voices back down. I hope this chapter cleared some things up for everyone; I realize it was all talking, but events will start to kick in pretty soon. Questions…you all can ask them too. Any other confusion will probably be explained next chapter, which has a logical follow-up title to this one just for the heck of it, and then…the game is afoot!_ (Sherlock Holmes gets all the best lines…)_

I can't read minds. Please review.


	9. Answers

**Chapter Nine: Answers**

**Author's Note: **You all saw _that_ one coming, didn't you… You got an early update! This chapter has been running around my head in various forms since the very beginning, so it was a quick write.

**Attention Attention: Non-shonen-ai! (Not Slash) **Ok? Ok. Don't get on my case about something that's not an issue in this story, and don't run away screaming. I know it can be read that way; I'm staying true to MY perspective. If you must scream, do scream quietly, but it's a waste of breath, because whatever you're screaming about, you're imagining it. (However, you're welcome to imagine it if you _must_; I won't stop you.) And _definitely_ don't run away. If it clears anything up, there's _no_ romance to speak of in this story.

Aaaaand…here's where we depart from Yu Yu Hakusho canon. I try to keep within the realms of probability. Keep in mind I'm a little clueless past Book 7 or so (Yah…sad huh?), and I'm kinda making some stuff up.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Star Trek. It owns me. (does _really_ bad zombie imitation while reciting 'These are the voyages…') Yu Yu Hakusho doesn't own me…yet. I own my plots, an Enterprise model, the Lhyarri, FOUR NEW STAR TREK BOOKS (as of Saturday!), and Lt. Ashley Faber.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

The chime of the door woke the kitsune from a sound sleep. Sitting up, he reached over to touch the companel beside the bed. "Yes? Who is it?" he asked, managing to keep from sounding too sleepy.

Deanna Troi's voice came into the darkness. "Kurama? I'm sorry; you were asleep, weren't you."

"It's all right," he soothed her automatically, although he had been asleep quite comfortably. "What is it?"

"Nothing that can't wait until morning," she backpedaled. "My apologi-"

"No, come in. I'll be out in a moment," he added as his sensitive ears picked up the sound of the automatic doors swishing open. Tapping the panel to end the conversation, he shoved the light sheet off himself and swung his bare feet onto the carpet.

"Shh, go back to sleep," he said softly, turning slightly to rest one hand on the shoulder of his half-awake companion. "I'll be back soon."

"Hai," the fire demon murmured, eyes already closing. _(Hai- yes, sure, okay: every other variation on the face of the planet.)_

Kurama smiled fondly as he rose and pulled on a simple robe over his white outfit. Tugging his long red hair from where it had gotten pinned beneath the collar, he tied the belt into a simple knot and moved silently toward the door, which slid open at his approach.

Deanna Troi was standing in the center of the room, looking out the wide windows with a slightly ashamed expression. She turned as he entered the larger room, and, as such, got a perhaps more comprehensive image of the slight slice of bedroom that was visible as the door closed.

As the door swished to behind him, he raised one hand to halt the inevitable train of thought. "Don't even think it, counselor; we've heard it all before and it's not what you're thinking," Kurama said mildly, taking no offense at the instantaneous assumption. Almost everyone who even suspected the truth about the exclusively platonic love that had developed between the fox-demon and the antisocial koorime made an issue of it; he hoped that she would be one of the few who didn't. Opponents had become allies had become partners in crime, and once they were bullied into 'babysitting' the Spirit Detectives around, their friendship had naturally flourished. Even once you got to know them, they were the antithesis of each other, but had endured three hundred years together; a symbiotic partnership that neither would want to break.

Before she could even begin to formulate a response, he waved the raised hand, dismissing it all. "Forget it. Can I offer you something? Sit down, please."

"Oh, no thank you," she said, sitting down in a comfortable chair facing the windows as he took the few steps towards the replicator mounted in one wall.

"Nonsense," he said amiably, handing her a chocolate milkshake. "You've just come off shift."

She broke into an involuntary smile as he sat down opposite her with his own glass of what looked to be orange juice. Sitting cross-legged on the couch against the back wall, he showed no signs of having just been abruptly woken, if one disregarded the white robe. "How did you know?" she asked, taking a sip and all but purring in delight. It was perfect.

"I have a friend who loves chocolate. Believe me, I can tell a chocoholic when I see one," he said, smiling over the rim of the orange juice.

"Well, thank you. It's a kind way to repay waking you." Once more he dismissed her words.

"Let's pretend you've said that. Why have you come here instead of being at home in bed?"

"Curiosity," she said, matching his bluntness, with a shrug that did _not_ spill her milkshake.

"A good reason. Anything in particular, or just general inquisitiveness?"

"No…yes."

He waited patiently for her to clarify that. Actually, she admitted to herself privately, this had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. After a few seconds thought, in which she organized her questions into some semblance of order, she said, "Curiosity about you—both of you. You told us much about Fenell and the universe, but nothing about yourselves. My business is to understand people. For most, my empathy gives me a kind of baseline, but you're both so heavily shielded that I can't receive anything besides the shallow from either of you. I'm at a loss, so to speak."

"That's understandable; I share that. I prefer to know as much as I can. Ask, Deanna," he said whimsically, slipping her given name in so smoothly that she barely even noticed. "What would you like to know? I'm normally quite cautious, and Hiei's even worse, but I'll tell you what I can."

On a whim, she asked suddenly, "Why 'Sean'?"

"Oh. It's a name I can remember to answer to. My human mother named me Shuuichi, and Sean is close enough while not being overly noticeable." He smiled sadly.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand you. You speak of a human mother; I was under the impression that—" She fumbled for words.

Kurama sighed and set his half-empty glass down on the table between them.

"I suppose that's as good a place to start as any. Three hundred years ago, at the end of the twentieth century in the Human world—I'm afraid Makai dates wouldn't mean much to you—I was someone almost completely different: a master thief of the Demon world. It was…fun, I suppose. Lonely, but fun. That was who I was; the name Youko Kurama still carries weight. Unfortunately I ran afoul of a bounty hunter who was much better than he should have been. My physical body was destroyed; I fled in spirit form to the human world and possessed the body of a soulless fetus. Months later I was born in the body that you see now." One hand flickered upward to touch his chest at the base of his throat. "I stopped my body from changing further once I reached this point; there was no further deception to maintain."

"Did your mother ever know?" Troi asked curiously.

"I don't believe so. Shiori knew I was different, of course, but not why or how. She may have suspected more than I ever knew, but we managed."

_There was no further deception to maintain…_ "What happened to her?"

He closed his green eyes, head lowering. "She died. An accident; there was nothing I could do." Despite his obvious distress, neither his voice nor expression changed, and it registered as little more than a slight flicker on her empathic senses.

"I'm sorry," Deanna said, regretting having brought it up.

"It's all right," he repeated patiently. "Please don't apologize any more; I don't take offense very easily."

"Why's that?" she queried against her better judgment.

His growing smile was beginning to look more like a satisfied smirk. "Because, Deanna, a plant mage in a temper can do a _lot_ of damage. I could indulge in temper tantrums in the Demon world, but it would lead to awkward questions as a human."

The half-Betazoid smiled, a mental image, of the redhead trying (and succeeding) to look innocent as baffled policemen gaped at a building torn down by a giant tree, popping into her mind.

"Yes. I can see how that would be difficult. So no one ever found out? Surely…"

"Oh, most people never knew. There were a few people, not to mention assorted demons that were run very quickly out of town once they crossed my path. Mostly, though, the only people who knew what we were—what?"

She quickly wiped the smile from her face. "Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"It's simply that I was wondering if you knew how often you speak of yourself in the plural."

His brow furrowed. "You know, I never considered it. Seeing as Hiei's not even awake—or, at least, I don't think he is—it doesn't make much sense, does it? We're so used to…there I go again." The puzzled frown turned into a smile. "Laugh away."

He seemed serious, so she smiled broadly and was relieved when he joined her in it.

"So who were these humans who knew about you?"

The redhead mimed counting on his fingers, getting a quick chuckle from her through a sip of milkshake. "The two I ran with the most were two teenage boys, both in the employ of Spirit World. Yusuke, and Kuwabara. Actually, Kuwabara's first name was Kazuma, but no one except his sister and Yukina ever referred to him as that. Hiei would tell you that they were both idiots, and he wouldn't be _that_ far wrong, even though he calls everyone that. But they were good friends in a pinch, and not someone you'd want to be fighting against."

"The Spirit World hired them?" Maybe she'd misunderstood.

Apparently not. "They found out a lot; Koenma didn't have much of a choice. Koenma's the prince of Reikai I mentioned in passing earlier, and if I say too much about him, you won't believe anything else I say. Yusuke died prematurely—they brought him back after he wandered around for weeks with the Grim Reaper, whom I also would rather not explain too much about. They bullied him into accepting a post as what they called 'Spirit Detective' and simply talked too much around Kuwabara, who really didn't know what he was getting into when he volunteered. We… sort of got drafted." Conscripted would be closer…

As he talked about his friends, he seemed a lot more at ease, so she asked suddenly, "Why are you so on guard around the crew? No one will bite you." She'd meant it to be a joke, but realized a moment after it came out that, in the life he lived, people probably did bite.

"Are you afraid of us, Counselor?"

She jumped in her chair, startled by the icy voice from behind her, and only the simple fact that she'd drunk most of it saved her from spilling the milkshake all over herself. Placing one hand over her racing heart, she turned slightly to see Hiei standing in the open doorway to the bedroom. He'd shed his all-encompassing black cloak, and wore a black, sleeveless shirt, and equally dark pants. Like his counterpart, he was barefoot, which explained his completely silent entrance.

"No," she answered his question, scrambling to remember what it was. "However, I might just be if you do that again."

He nodded shortly. "You don't fear us, but you're still on your guard; your mental barriers are still raised."

"Of course. It doesn't stem from fear of you, however. The unrestrained emotion of many of the crew is painful to an unguarded telepath." _You know that,_ she thought at him.

If he heard, he gave no sign of it. "Yes. It's a way of life. Life's a lot rougher among demons; trust usually means death. I smell chocolate."

The Betazoid was startled by the abrupt change of topic before realizing that he'd finished talking to her, and was instead addressing the fox-demon, who was unsuccessfully trying to hide a smile behind one hand.

"Of course you do. Did you only just notice now?"

"I was asleep and you know it. You didn't come back, so I began to wonder what sort of conversation was so fascinating."

"We were discussing Yusuke and Kuwabara."

"Yes, I know."

Kurama shifted his attention back to a recovered Troi. "Is there anything else?" he asked as the smaller demon joined him.

"Yes…you didn't say much about just what demons are. I'm a little curious about that too."

"Demons, Counselor," Hiei informed her from his seat on the back of the couch, "are quicker, stronger, and more ruthless than the average human. Our senses are immeasurably better than most of the races currently known. The higher-ranking ones are far cleverer. Many control elements of nature and use them as deadly weapons, mostly to bully those weaker, serve those stronger, and continually strive against those on the same level as themselves."

"However, despite all this, there are still some humans—forgive us, Counselor, but the majority of demonic interaction has been with humans; the term has stuck—who can face us on an equal footing. And for most demons, life is an endless war just to survive; many lack the ability to experience the gentler emotions; tranquility, joy, love…"

She looked at the both of them, seated together, and couldn't help but think that regardless of their harsh, and no doubt true, words, there were exceptions, and two of them were right here.

A smile flickered across Kurama's face briefly. "Of course, there are still some demons in Ningenkai…and unless you can sense them, they pass for mortal very well. I would not be surprised to discover at least one in Starfleet."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Now you're teasing me."

The smile widened, and he shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. I wouldn't do that."

"Now he's lying through his teeth, Counselor, he teases people all the time."

Kurama merely shrugged, still smiling slightly.

"Hmm. If you say so. But you also said that demons don't like space."

"There are always exceptions," the redhead defended.

"Like you. Do you really think you can pull this off?"

Kurama extended one closed hand, and opened it to reveal her favorite hairclip, which she had been wearing. The Betazoid gasped and raised one hand to check her hair. The clip was gone. "How did you—" she spluttered, before remembering that he had openly admitted to being a thief. "Give me that!"

"Oh, I think we've got a pretty good chance," he almost purred, allowing her to retrieve her hairclip. "You never know what will appear."

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note: **All my information on demons comes from either Yu Yu Hakusho, the wonderful series _Inu-Yasha_, or a demented corner of my brain. I know nothing about Japanese mythology. All mistakes are, I mean, that is: creative license is mine.

Last chapter was meant to be about _what_ is going on; this was on just _who_ these two are anyway. I considered putting them in one chapter a _long_ time ago but divided them into two because they are disparate. Also, I doubt anyone really wants to sit through more than six thousand words in one go about something they already know half of. YYH fans, if you just skimmed this because you know it all, fine. Be that way.

Also, I realize that a lot of Kurama's explanations come all but word for word from the books—that is because they are _good_ explanations, especially since I don't know what I'm talking about. I can only hope that he does. That may of course explain why I could write this in one midnight sitting right after posting 'Questions' and minor touch-ups.

**

* * *

**

**CHAT:** _(a newly instigated chat-back-to-the-reviewers section)_

**KHnews hound:** As to the mini-conversation, it was nothing more than the fact that Riker tends to assign people quarters in most of the books. One may assume it was also an apology for instigating the plan that finally caught Hiei, but personally I think that should probably come from Ashley Faber. I also personally think that that's unlikely. I am glad you are enjoying this. So am I.

**grayangle:** Well, I'm glad you're flattered, you deserve it…I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT! Ha! That's brilliant! She just came out that way, but I can probably work it in towards the end if I feel like it then. Weaker demons would not stay hidden for long; it's only the cleverest that can maintain a cover. I don't think even they can erase everyone's memory, and Data's, _and_ the computer's, _and_ go through the ship with a fine-tooth comb (although I bet Kurama has one in his pocket). Remember those aliens tried that in 'Clues' (season 4, #88 according to my _Star Trek Encyclopedia_) and they left so many traces behind? It didn't turn out at all well for them, and that was a whole race of telepaths… I'm kind of treading on thin ice with regard to their powers anyway, and walking on thin ice with a fire demon in tow generally isn't a _very_ good idea.

**All the silent people out there: **I can hear you breathing, thanks to my wonderful 'Stats' page. Hi! I'm really glad you're reading this; it's a fun story to write. I was afraid everyone would get bored through all the talking, I am happy to be wrong. To everyone in former chapters that said that this was fitting together better than they thought it would, well, I am amazed as you are. By the way, I'm really not as silly as I sound sometimes…

**keepondreaming16:** _(in response to a prior comment)_ I remembered what Homecoming is, are you proud of me? It's an excuse (of questionable validity) to throw a weeklong party! Admit it, I'm right!

P.S. If I can think of a better title for this section, I will change it. Suggestions?


	10. The Game Is Afoot

**Chapter Ten: The Game Is Afoot**

**Author's Note:** You know, for once, I don't think I have anything to put here. I am very confused. I just realized how much I've been procrastinating: doing several full laps around Elfwood's FanArt section, believe it or not. But I found a hilarious picture that _embodies_ the term 'sleight of hand', Yu Yu Hakusho style, so it was worth it. It made my week. (shrieks 'tuxedo' spontaneously and laughs) I don't need a disclaimer until next chapter, so…

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

The moment Dr. Crusher entered the cargo bay, she was almost immediately assaulted by a distressed Gunthar, who charged through his people towards the opening doors once he saw who it was that had deigned to pay them a visit.

"Doctor!" he bellowed loudly, folding his arms over his chest. "We have a problem!"

"What is it?" she asked carefully, having already, in fact, guessed. "Is there something I can do?"

"I should hope so," Gunthar rumbled. "Sean has gone missing, and the security outside has been most unhelpful. We have been on our best behavior ever since we left spacedock; I believe we deserve a little assistance."

"Don't worry," she soothed him, hurriedly remembering her cobbled-together explanation. "We've had him down in sickbay for the last few days."

"Oh," an only slightly mollified Gunthar said. "Well, he's been in good hands, then, but I would have preferred to have been told before he was removed. And I would like him returned to us by the time we are beamed down to our new world. Am I correct in assuming that we're close?"

"You would be indeed. We should be able to beam you down by this evening. If you'll excuse me?"

"Certainly, but—"

She gave him a professional smile before he could continue and made a quick escape, wading through the eavesdroppers with little difficulty. Once the cargo bay doors had closed behind her, she muttered to herself, "I'm going to need to talk to Kurama."

"Well, I'm right here; what do you need?"

She fairly jumped out of her skin, turning one hundred and eighty degrees on one heel to face the redhead. "Must you?" she asked venomously.

"Sorry."

Dr. Crusher took a deep breath, calming herself. "Actually, I needed to know what Sean was going to do. How were you planning to stay on the _Enterprise_ if Gunthar had you under his thumb all the time? He's asking for you—Sean—whoever, you know."

"We intended for me to stay unobtrusive until the Sierrans were to depart. I would then simply shuffle the beam-down schedule enough for no one to notice that I wasn't in any party. Unfortunately, that's no longer an option."

"It sounds like you need to be in two places at once," she joked. "Can you do that?"

He smiled. "No. I can appear to, but not physically exist in two separate places. In fact…" His eyes went absent for a moment. "That may be the best course," he continued.

"How so?" she asked, gesturing for him to walk with her. He fell into step obediently.

"I could beam down in Sean's form. The _Enterprise_ would naturally remain in orbit for some time, is that not correct? Before long, I could slip off, discard my disguise, and, drawing on that world's plant life, construct a simulacrum of Sean that would wander off and simply vanish into the wild. I would then contact the _Enterprise_ and be beamed back up. It's not perfect, but it will do."

"Did you make up all that on the spot?" she asked, impressed. "Remind me not to play Go with you."

"Actually, I've done it before, yes, it was on the spot, but it wasn't all my idea." At her confused look, he added, "Anything said to one of us eventually gets back to the other, Doctor. We're not in constant communication, but it's close enough. As to the simulacrum, I wouldn't be able to construct it on board the _Enterprise_, if you were wondering. A feat like that requires more power than I comfortably have on hand; I could drain my own life-force, but would be unconscious for days just to regain enough energy to even sit up if I survived. Planetside, I can call on Lima Sierra's plant life for the power I'll need."

She didn't quite understand the bit about the plants, but believed him if he said it would work. "And they'll find the simulacrum eventually?"

He considered it…or perhaps discussed it; she couldn't tell the difference. "It depends. We've never been to Lima Sierra, so we don't know exactly what I'm dealing with, but M-class worlds usually have the same general type of vegetation. Ideally, the simulacrum will become inanimate before long, producing the same effect as a dead body. By the time it dissolves, it should be buried in a grave and forgotten."

Crusher frowned as they turned a corner, trying to find some problem with his/their plan. "What if they autopsy the 'body'?"

He paused, listening and then winced slightly. "Hiei suggests… making the cause of death so obvious that no one will bother." He was quite obviously paraphrasing whatever his partner had really said.

"Uh huh. And what was that look for?"

"He offered to lend me his sword after I told him he wasn't coming along. Well, actually, he threatened to hit me with it if he was to be left behind, but I asked if that was an offer to let me borrow it. It was too good an idea to pass up, but he can keep the sword. I won't need it."

She flinched in sympathy with him. Actually, upon reminding, she was mildly surprised that Worf hadn't demanded the immediate turnover of the blade. Why Kurama went unarmed if they were often physically separated in dangerous territory was beyond her, but she decided not to ask. The likelihood of getting a straight answer instead of a half-truth or downright lie was too great. Besides, she probably didn't want to know.

"That sounds feasible. How long will it take you?"

"Not long. An hour, at least. Two to be safe."

She nodded as they reached the turbolift. "Would you like to tell the captain, or shall I?"

"You should probably tell him." His eyes went vacant again, looking into the middle distance. "I'll meet you in sickbay as Sean an hour before arrival at Lima Sierra IV; it would look odd if I returned on my own."

"Yes, of course," Dr. Crusher bid him goodbye as the turbolift's door opened. He nodded to her as she stepped in, and went back the way he had come, vanishing around the corner by the time the door had closed.

**

* * *

**

The darkness didn't bother him as he ambled easily through the streets of Riiseth, Lima Sierra Four's main city. Disregarding the idle glances of late-night, unoccupied passerby, Sean made his aimless way towards the edge of the town. No one hindered him; all were either at the late-night (in Riiseth's time) impromptu gathering, or more likely, party, for their new neighbors or at home safely in their beds. With few large, carnivorous, predators on the continent, there was no need for a gate or elaborate security measures that would require careful bypass. There was no one to notice the little blond boy slipping quietly away.

Exactly as he'd planned it.

A safe distance into the dense forest, he closed his eyes and reached out for any indication, smell, sound, or second sense, that a human colonist was nearby. Finding only a bright, forceful cluster in the city five minutes behind him and no trace in the tangled brush, he allowed the diligently maintained illusion to dissolve into metaphorical dust.

Kurama shook his head, beast-like, freeing his long hair from the constraints of the alternate form. Despite its outward appearance, he still retained some measure of feeling in his original body—wearing a smaller illusory form felt much like wearing a wet shirt that one knows will be too small by the time it dries. With a relieved smile, he knelt, working his fingers into the damp night earth.

It was pleasant, he thought, after weeks in space, aboard a metal, sterile starship, to be able to return to his own element. Surrounded by trees and other plants, even on the surface of an alien world, he was most at ease, not having to be on his guard against attacks either physical or verbal. The plants themselves would defend him in an emergency; there was no one to bother him.

A tentative pulse against his mental barriers corrected his misconception. _Well, one person. _And the little koorime barely counted; they were so close mentally that they habitually, as Counselor Troi had observed, referred to themselves as 'we' even though the other would be any distance away.

_I'm here,_ he sent back. _You there?_ The message translated only roughly; the back-and-forth of acknowledgement and questioning constantly passed between them.

_Ready?_ Hiei asked from their quarters on the ship. Kurama knew without asking that he'd be perched on the window ledge, watching the planet from miles away in space.

_Almost._ Sitting cross-legged with his back against a native tree, he worked his left hand further into the earth, calling on the plants that he controlled to aid him. Alone, he couldn't create a simulacrum; the animating and most essential elements were fire and earth. For water and air, he could draw on the plants' roots and the air around him, although it was easier with four elementals.

Raising his right hand to eye level, he pulled threads of power from his own core, spinning them before him like a loom—or, as he preferred to think of it, as vines climbing a trellis. Weaving Hiei's power into it, he pulled from his mind the memory of his illusion, providing the whirling dervish he saw in his mind's eye with a body upon which to hang. Drawing strength from the vegetation around him, he disregarded the need to animate the copy and instead focused on making it as lifelike and cohesive as possible.

When he opened his eyes, nearly forty-five minutes of profound concentration later, and severed his connection to the earth, a dark shape stood before him, unmoving.

_Are you all right?_ his partner asked.

"Of course," he replied aloud, then rolled his eyes at his own forgetfulness and repeated the assurance telepathically. _I'm fine. Don't worry about me._

_That's what I always say, and you never listen to me,_ Hiei protested.

_That's because you always lie about it,_ the kitsune chuckled, strength returning with his sense of humor. _And because the last time you said that, we were in the middle of a battle and you had three inches of blade in your side. I think I have reason not to listen to you, my friend._

_That was entirely different,_ he grumbled.

_Sure…I'm coming back up now,_ he sent. _Five minutes. Anything happen?_

_No._

_You're nowhere near that monitor, are you?_

_You were the one who asked for my help._

_Fine, fine. Go check; I'll see you in a few minutes._

The conversation was over, but he could still sense his friend's movement in a distant corner of his mind. They'd gotten into the security systems with laughable ease—for them. Constant monitoring of the bridge, engineering, and other high-security areas was a built-in feature of Starfleet systems, and was a convenient opportunity to keep their fingers in the middle of the important areas of the ship while staying out of Picard's way until he calmed down a little bit.

Inspecting the simulacrum woven of pure demonic power, he was pleased. It looked human; it felt and smelled human. There was little animating power, but little was needed. He placed one hand on its forehead. "Run," he whispered, pulling an image of a nearby creek bed, half full of stagnant water that he could smell from half a mile away, into his mind. "Fall," he continued, imagining the body slipping on the slimy rocks, and falling at such an angle as to break its neck and leave it facedown in the torpid water. Cause of 'death' would be plain, and much easier to explain than a sword through the heart. _Run,_ he repeated the command in a language he didn't often need to use, and stepped back and away as it stirred to life.

Sean blinked several times, took one step, then another. Fixing his hands behind his back, Kurama watched as it tested out its limbs, then shuffled away, gaining speed as it went. It would carry out its mission without fail, and then decompose weeks later. Assuming the Sierrans found the simulacrum before it began to dissolve—quite likely—there would be no questions asked. The creek was not that far away, after all.

He did so hate loose ends; you were so easily tangled in them.

Once he was satisfied that the simulacrum was well on its way, Kurama pulled a commbadge from his pocket and tapped it. "Transporter Room Three."

"Standing by," Miles O'Brien's cheerful voice greeted him.

"One to beam back."

He pocketed the commbadge just before the transporter beam claimed him. He had declined to wear it because, a thief by nature, he tended to pocket little things that wouldn't be noticed missing automatically. Certainly not out of vanity, as a certain small fire demon would automatically and quite happily accuse.

_Vain kitsune._

Kurama rolled his eyes with a tolerant smile as he vanished into blue and silver sparks.

**

* * *

**

The _Enterprise_ remained in orbit around Lima Sierra IV; they were without leads in their priority mission. Engineering had requested that the ship not go charging off randomly, and had made vague promises of supplying a clue, leaving whoever was in charge of the bridge, in this case, Commander Riker, to sit and pace. Impatient, he left the bridge to the command of the unperturbed Data and headed down to Deck 36 to discover more on the nature of their possible miracle.

Riker made his way into engineering, sidestepping an impressive array of relays and discarded tools scattered around. The reason for the unusual disorderliness was unclear upon first glance. As he wandered around, puzzled, he spotted Lieutenant Barclay, at work in the chief's office. Besides a skeleton staff, the area surrounding the sullenly pulsing warp core was devoid of its normal bustling complement of engineers and the cheerful chief engineer.

"Lieutenant," he called, stopping at the threshold of the small room.

Barclay startled, jerking around and nearly dropping the PADD he held. Catching it one-handed, and looking rather encouraged by the feat, he tried to come to attention without stepping on something. "Commander Riker, sir!"

"Just commander will do, Lieutenant," Riker assured him, staying where he was. "Where is everyone?"

"Deck 34, sir, just behind the main—main deflector."

"What the heck are they doing back there?" Riker asked, frowning.

"Th-they're modifying the l-long-range sensor array, the two, ah, am…" Apparently he couldn't bring himself to say 'demons.'

"Yes, I know who you mean," Riker sighed. "What are they up to?"

"They're h-helping Commander La Forge with the sensors; to enable the long-range sensors to cut th-through the cloaking device on _Alameda._"

"Cloaking device? I never heard anything about that," Riker muttered, more to himself than Reg Barclay. "Don't answer, Lieutenant, I'll go find Geordi. Carry on," he dismissed the lieutenant, and turned on his heel, boots making soft noises on the blue and grey carpet as he headed for the nearest 'lift.

The doors of the turbolift hissed open a few seconds later in a small room, containing the computer readouts of the long-range sensor array. Even before the doors had fully parted, he could hear the sounds of engineers hard at work: the clatters, crashes, metallic bangs, and cheerful back-and-forth that seemed to come with the territory.

"Hello back there," Riker called, stepping into the narrow service corridor, which lead to the long-range sensors' 'nuts' and 'bolts', as it were, situated in an unobtrusive alcove to the right as he entered. "What's going on?"

Emerging from the slightly claustrophobic passage, he was stopped short by the sight of an indescribable contraption jerry-rigged directly into the sensory devices. Made of a black substance that, eerily, seemed to absorb light, but was probably something very common, it spanned the entire chamber, reaching to about five feet high and sprawling from sensor to sensor like a giant parasite. Monitors, attached in odd and unlikely places, blinked and chirped as they ran start-up diagnostics. He counted, at first glance, five engineers, not including Geordi La Forge, who was located an instant later on the far side of the ceiling grate, and Hiei, sitting cross-legged on a section and blending in quite well with the contraption, whatever it was, in his black cloak.

"Good morning, Commander!" La Forge said happily from just above his head. Sparks flew for an instant from the two wires he was working on splicing together, cutting off the rest of his greeting. A shout of 'Sorry!' from what appeared to be a not-so-solid wall, underscored by the universal translator's slight signature, indicated that Kurama was deep in the guts of the ship too, and too distracted to speak Federation Standard.

"I thought the power was off!" Geordi yelled.

"It was!"

"Geordi, its 1350 hours," Will corrected, brushing a loose spark from his uniform and trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Is it really? Wow. Think we have room for lunch down here?" he called.

"As well?" Lieutenant Hayes said skeptically, briefly emerging from beneath their machine. "Where would we put it?"

Geordi smiled ecstatically and looked back down at the commander. "Guess we've been a little busy down here." The obvious irony was clear. Equally clear was that La Forge was having the time of his life.

"Busy with what, exactly?" Riker glanced around, nodding to Geordi's assistants and only briefly meeting the eyes of the fire demon perched atop the device, if such a small word like device could convey the sprawling, encompassing feeling of said apparatus.

"Your sensors can't punch through _Alameda_'s cloak," Hiei spoke up scornfully. "You may be able to pick up a damaged warbird, but _Alameda_ is completely different. This" he gestured downward, "is a mess, but it will give _Enterprise_ a chance of tracking her down."

"How does it work?" Riker asked, looking back up at Geordi. He put the stupid question down to being discombobulated by the demon's unrelenting crimson stare, and immediately ate his words. "No, don't tell me. What do you mean, a chance?"

"Well, the number of possible frequencies for the cloak are like your shields—theoretically near-infinite," Kurama's voice called from behind the wall. He paused for a second, and then appeared on Geordi's grid-floor level, only to causally leap down the ladder's shaft. Landing quite solidly on his feet, he continued, "But, of course, some frequencies would require a ridiculous amount of power, so they're almost never used."

"Ok, I'm with you so far. But in battle, there's no time to rotate your phaser frequencies. If you can guess the shield frequency, then it'll go through them like they aren't there. Data could probably rattle of the probability off the top of his head, but I know it's a pretty high ratio. You're using remote sensors here, and only a guess that _Alameda_ is in the area. It's not feasible to scan an entire sector—or is that what this is for?"

"That's what this is for," Geordi grinned. "During our first battle with Fenell, the computer picked up an odd radiation surge in subspace. It only showed up a second before _Alameda_ dropped out of warp and started firing on us, but the computer registered it. This scans for that unusual signature in subspace, which is the only place the radiation shows up. Once it's up and running—if we ever get the right power lines off when they're supposed to be off—this will seize onto the closest 'scent' of that radiation. We'll just follow it along, and their cloak will be useless. Normal sensors won't be able to pick them up, but this baby will sniff them right out."

Riker was actually quite impressed. "Where's the radiation coming from, or do you not know?"

"Fenell's own haul," Kurama smirked, leaning against the black sensor with his arms folded. "Infernium."

"Wait a second. I just thought of something else," Riker said, after strolling the few steps to examine the tracking device for a few seconds. "What if you follow the trail in the wrong direction?"

"Well, if Hiei can't get _that_ element of the programming working, then we could be chasing wild geese all over the sector," Kurama smiled innocently across at said koorime, who glared at him, _I'm **working** on it_ all but echoing. "Which of course won't happen."

"Damn right," Riker barely heard.

"Good work," the commander complimented all and sundry. "Do you have a time estimate yet?"

La Forge glared downwards from behind the grate, still holding his wires. "It depends. Is the power definitely off now?"

"Yes, yes, I turned it off."

"Good." As he spliced the wires together, this time without the fireworks, he replied, talking around his work, "we should have this hunk of junk up and running pretty soon, Commander. That better?"

"Much," Hiei muttered, attention completely on his computer panel. His fingers flew over it for a few seconds, and then paused, looking up at his kitsune partner. Kurama nodded wordlessly and vanished up the ladder again, completely disregarding Riker.

"What was that about?" the commander asked Geordi.

"No idea. They've been trying to speak aloud—it was creeping my people out a little bit—but I suppose old habits die hard."

**

* * *

**

"La Forge to bridge," the call came up not half an hour later.

"Go ahead, Geordi," Riker answered from the center chair. "Good news, I hope?"

"You bet. Subspace infernium sensors are on line."

"Oh, is that what we're calling that thing?"

"If it fits, Commander."

"Very well, let's keep this channel open. Mr. Data, scan for infernium trails."

"Aye, sir," the android at Ops said at once. Plying his console, he proceeded to link in the new sensors and carry out his orders. Just as Will Riker began to settle in for a long wait, Data suddenly sat up.

"Commander," Data said sharply, looking as surprised as an android can, "there is a trail off our starboard bow. Destination coming in now." He consulted his panel. "Sir, there are traces of infernium in Lima Sierra's Oort Cloud."

Riker stood up and took the few paces to look over Data's shoulder. Refraining from asking 'are you sure,' he tapped his commbadge. "Captain to the bridge."

Only a handful of seconds later, the door to the captain's ready room hissed open, and Picard emerged. "Report, Number One," he said crisply, taking command by his presence alone.

"There is a possible infernium signature on the edge of the system," Riker told him. "Could be _Alameda_."

Picard raised one eyebrow. "Bold of them. Mr. Data, does the trail lead away from the Oort cloud, or does it end there?"

"Sir, there is a departing trace; however, there is a stationary source of the radiation."

"Fenell's cache?" Riker speculated.

Data checked with his panel again. "Unlikely, sir. The signal is extremely faint. At a greater distance, the chances of registering it would be—" Seeing the captain's warning look, he amended, "improbable."

"Understood. Get the coordinates from Mr. Data and lay in a course at warp five, Ensign Crusher."

"Aye, sir, course laid in," Wesley said, fingers tapping in the heading.

"Mr. Worf, raise shields, prepare all weapons," the captain continued, seating himself in his command chair. "Yellow Alert. Mr. Crusher, engage." He pointed forward in his signature gesture as the majestic ship got under way.

Two and a half minutes later, Picard ordered, "Drop to impulse power. Report."

"Tactical sensors are picking up a small ship of uncertain origin situated on a large asteroid dead ahead," Worf rumbled.

"Hail it," the captain ordered, rising and tugging his uniform into place absently.

"They do not respond," Worf informed him moments later.

"Hail them anyway. Make sure they can see me even if they don't want to talk back."

"Aye, sir, channel open."

"Attention unidentified vessel," Captain Picard announced. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship _Enterprise._ Stand by to be brought aboard by a tractor beam."

He nodded to Worf, who cut the channel and asked, "Tractor beam, sir?"

"If they won't talk to us, we'll have to talk to them directly," Picard explained as he sat back down. "Bring them in, Mr. Worf."

"Aye, sir. Engaging tractor beam." At Worf's command, a blue beam shot out from the forward dorsal emitters, midway down the swan's neck of the _Enterprise, _seizing onto the small ship and drawing towards the main shuttlebay.

"Mr. Data, you have the bridge," Picard commanded, standing up yet again and beckoning to Riker. "Number One, Counselor, please accompany me."

Deanna Troi rose from her seat to Picard's left, where she had taken up residence in response to the yellow alert, and followed him with Riker up the curving wing of the bridge to the aft turbolift. As they went, Worf tapped his commbadge, summoning two security guards to rendezvous with the captain's party in the main shuttlebay.

**

* * *

**

The enormous double doors swished open to admit Captain Picard, Will Riker, Deanna Troi, a security officer named Ensign Shail, and Lieutenant Faber, who was toting a phaser as usual. The officer on duty snapped to attention and nodded stiffly as they entered.

The man lounging against the pocked and worn surface of his small ship did nothing of the kind. Scruffily dressed in oil-splattered brown coveralls that had seen a lot of wear, he looked like nothing more than an itinerant trader down on his luck. His green skin, hefty build, and leather skullcap covering a bald head denoted him as an Orion.

"Captain Picard, I assume," he said casually as the party came to a stop in front of him.

"Indeed. May I know your name?" Picard asked diplomatically.

"You can call me Mordecai. I guess you took the bait, huh?"

"The bait?" Riker asked, getting a bad feeling that they'd been suckered.

"That infernium stuff. I've got a chunk on board. Captain Fenell said you'd sniff it right out."

At their expressions, he laughed. "Yeah, I'm one of the captain's men. My orders are simple, Captain Picard: I have a message for you, from one captain to another. If I can remember it. One moment…"

He closed his eyes and thought as the double doors swished open. Riker turned to look, and was unsurprised to see Hiei and Kurama enter. The latter nodded to him, and half-smiled as they joined the group.

"Ah yes," Mordecai said finally, breaking his own reverie. Looking directly at Captain Picard, he recited, "'Greetings, Captain Picard. I should be honored to know that the flagship and best crew in the fleet is so concerned with me, but, sadly, I'm not. In fact, I'm more irritated than anything. So this is a warning. You couldn't win a small battle with me, and you can't win a pitched one. It's in your best interest to abandon your little hunt. Starfleet won't be too happy with you, but that's life. And life's better than the alternative: if I see that great hulking ship of yours again, I'll blast you out of the sky.'"

Mordecai grinned at Picard's rather taken aback expression. "To the point, huh? The captain's not one to mince words."

Picard sighed softly. "I thank you for your warning, but Fenell should know that I can't abandon my mission."

"Captain, he's made a tactical error," Riker exclaimed. "We have here one of his own people—one of his crew. He should know something. For example," he turned on Mordecai, "Where is _Alameda_ headed?"

"Sorry, can't say," Mordecai shrugged. Seeing the security officers reaching for their phasers, he raised his hands defensively. "Whoa, wait a second. Captain, are you really going to let them fire on an unarmed man?"

"Hold your fire," Picard commanded reluctantly.

"Besides," Mordecai continued, standing up and tensing, "I know absolutely nothing!"

With that, he broke into a sprint, heading round the hull of his ship to the door on the other side.

Deanna Troi had been watching the two demons from the moment they had joined the group. So she was the one who saw Kurama make his move. In a seamless set of movements, his right hand flew to a lock of his hair, then was flung outward, holding what appeared to be in all aspects a rose. As his hand reached it's highest point, he snapped his wrist back down, and the rose transformed into a good ten feet of whip that hissed through the air to wrap around the fleeing Mordecai.

The Orion shrieked in shock and fear as he was thrown backwards. As he flew backwards, Kurama seized his collar, bared sharp fangs, and snarled, "You lie!"

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note: **We're now deep into the meat of the story (took long enough), so I have to actually think about what I write. Believe it or not, it took me longer to find out what deck the long-range sensors are on than it did to write all that technobabble about the sensors or the shuttlebay scene you just finished. On another note, the information on simulacra is from Tamora Pierce's Immortals Quartet; I have changed it on minor counts, but the intent (and, indeed, purpose) remains the same. My 'credits' list is so long now…

**CHAT:**

**grayangle**: Thank you! I try. The finer details get sorted out in my head in the middle of algebra class or theology tests, but the story (and my grades, luckily) seem to be working out despite that. Oh, you inspire me—can I use that? I think you've just given me a jumping-off point for a Yu Yu Hakusho sort-of-epic story that has a really cool title and summary at the moment but not much else. Oh, the 88 came from total episodes over the course of the series. It's one of my favorites…but I haven't seen it in awhile.

**KHnews hound:** Ooh, Q as well? I would love to do a Q story. Some day in the distant future I might even start one. I'm not sure how he would fit in with this, apart from dropping by, making a few smart comments, playing some kind of trick on Picard, and then going off in a huff. Mmm, doesn't quite jive with the current plot as I've planned it. One might imagine that Q has met up with them at least once; they probably did not get along. My imagination is pretty good, but I'm having a little trouble with Q and Hiei in the same story without terminal personality clash. An idea anyway! Koenma may get a cameo appearance, or maybe just a mention (more likely).

**koriaena:** A new reviewer! I'm thrilled—welcome! I'm so glad you like this. You are, by the way, the first person to comment on the (non)slash aspect of Answers. I will occasionally read low-key slash stories but won't write it into a story like this (as if I could write romance anyway). As I have a tentative (one might say select if being nice) audience here, I don't want to scare anyone off. And as an apology for shifting the venue so far out, I'm trying to stick to the shards of what's left of the canon…


	11. Hel's Gate

**Chapter Eleven: Hel's Gate**

**Author's Note:** First off, that's not a misspelling. It's supposed to be with one L only—I went and checked, and then reread the whole book, _Dujonian's Hoard,_ anyway. I hope no one's read it (unlikely) because I'm taking creative license again.

**Disclaimer: **Don't bother. I'm broke, as usual. Hopefully I'll get some money eventually, though I'll probably just spend it on books, but it won't be worth suing me over.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

Mordecai gasped with shock and fear, stumbling over his words as his feet scrabbled wildly and futilely. "How…who…what?"

"Did your master send you here unwarned?" Kurama half-hissed, looking skeptical. He released the Orion's collar, but the whip he'd created remained, pinioning his arms and torso. "I doubt it. By now, Nabuhari must have told the galaxy that we've shown our faces again."

The Orion appeared to put two and two together. "He said, two _youkai_—you?" With knowledge, his bravado returned, looking arrogantly at Kurama despite the whip binding him and the pair of phasers that Faber and Shail had drawn on him. "I had heard something to that effect. Two thieves of the Demon World, hiding from those they've wronged and taking their crimes to the spaceways. Actually, some of the stuff I heard was a little more interesting than that. Where's your pet?"

The hiss of a sword being drawn failed to cover Hiei's snarl of rage. Evidently they'd heard that one before. Kurama's free hand twitched, perhaps a wish to reach for a weapon, perhaps a caution. In any case, the smaller demon refrained from attacking, although he continued to fume as Kurama said coolly, "Brave words. But foolish. The whip I'm holding can slice through duranium in its more dangerous form; bone is one of the lighter elements. A rose has thorns, after all…"

The threat hit home; Mordecai looked downward involuntarily as the demon tightened his temporarily thorn-free bonds with a flick of his wrist. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Riker distinctly saw the green tint to the Orion's skin turn sickly.

"Captain," he pleaded, "will you let them threaten me this way?"

Picard raised one eyebrow, hands at his sides. "From where I stand, I see no harm being done to you. I don't control either of them, and quite frankly, wouldn't care to try."

_He can't harm him—or can't be sure he'll get away with it. They're bluffing,_ he thought, looking a little closer. _Why do I have a sinking feeling that they usually are?_

"Tell us, Mordecai," Hiei said coldly. "Where is Fenell going, and what does he plan when he gets there?"

"Release me first, and I'll tell you everything," Mordecai tried to bargain.

The demons exchanged sideways looks for a brief moment. A trained diplomat, Picard tried to decipher their thoughts. He rather thought that they were confident enough in their abilities to allow the Orion to stand on his own. In a shuttlebay in the outer hull of one of the most advanced ships in the fleet, there was only so far he could go.

Kurama's whip vanished in a soft flare of pale green light, and Mordecai rubbed his arms nervously, distancing himself from the fox by a few steps.

"Captain Fenell," he started, shifting his eyes to Captain Picard, "will kill me when he learns that I have turned traitor. I want asylum."

"Asylum will be worthless if we are destroyed in battle," Picard warned him.

"Being destroyed in battle would be a far better alternative than suffering a turncoat's death, Captain Picard."

The captain looked to his left, then to his right. "Counselor, Commander, your thoughts?"

"You can't trust him, Captain," Deanna warned in an undertone. "Anyone who will betray his sworn captain and crew will betray others."

"Deanna's right, Captain. I say we grant him asylum in our brig."

"My officers have good points, Mordecai," Picard said, addressing the Orion calmly. "What have you to say in your defense?"

"Captain, in your brig or not, only on board your ship, I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain from telling the complete truth."

_Yes, his life to gain, and his life to lose._

_Powerful bait,_ Hiei replied silently. _I'd choose life to lose, for him. I'm getting annoyed with being called 'pet.' You scared him, _he changed the subject.

_Sadly enough, it was fun._

_Of course. I'd expect no less of you._ Sensing the redhead's line of thought before he even thought it himself, Hiei cut off his partner's thoughts with, _Now is not the time, kitsune._ Their conversation had taken only a few breaths, and Mordecai had only now worked himself up to confessing all he knew.

"_Alameda_ is en route to Hel's Gate, Captain." The Orion shifted his feet.

"Hel's Gate?" Riker asked, confusion evident in his voice.

"Why would he go there?" Picard asked, brow furrowing. "It's a suicide course for any ship."

"Perhaps it would help if we knew what Hel's Gate was, Captain," Deanna Troi said softly. "I've never heard of it. Why does it have such a colorful name?"

"Because it's a pretty damn colorful place, Counselor," Mordecai said bluntly. "And that's just what you can see. What it can do to you—it would be a graveyard of unquiet dead if the Gate left enough for bones."

"Hel's Gate is a vortex, Counselor, a Maelstrom, and an urban legend as far as most people are concerned. In actual fact, it does exist, although it seems a foolish place for a smuggler's lair. The gravitational forces have never fully been explained, as no probe survives for long, and some of the phenomena haven't even received names yet."

Riker mulled it over. "Sounds like a good place for a trap. If Fenell really knows all that he seems to, he could be luring us in. We have only the word of one of his men."

"And sensor traces," Kurama reminded him. "This does give us a direction to search in, now."

"It fits," Picard decided. "I have also read theories that state that, if you could pass the outer fringes of the Gate, there is a wormhole, possibly a dimensional portal, possibly a hypothetical 'white hole,' all of which are equally likely. If a 'white hole' existed, Hel's Gate would be the place to find one. If Fenell has found a way to enter Hel's Gate, we will go after him. What else do you know, Mordecai?"

"I know nothing else, Captain," the Orion said nervously, as if expecting Fenell's wrath to descend on him at any moment. "I was a lower-decks crewman, and so expendable. However, if I remember anything, I will find a way to inform you at once."

"Understood. Lieutenant, escort our guest to the brig, but do not mistreat him in any way."

"Aye, sir," Faber saluted, and paced Mordecai as he calmly and quite docilely followed Ensign Shail from the shuttlebay.

"Opinions?" Captain Picard queried his second-in-command and ship's counselor, while resigning himself to the inevitable input of the two demons, whom he still wasn't quite used to yet. Why this might be, he didn't know. He had dealt, in his long career, with far stranger races, but the demons unsettled him at a basic level. He was beginning to believe it was imprinted into humans.

"He's telling the truth, Captain, as far as he knows it," Deanna said first. "He's genuinely afraid of this Gate, and seemed terrified of his captain's retribution."

"I don't see how Fenell could have passed or even entered the Gate," Kurama mused, eyes distant. He folded his arms. "Any energy output is immediately reflected back to you exponentially. He couldn't have chosen a more foolish place for a battle, even if he's anticipated Mordecai turning his coat."

"It's perfectly safe—for him," Hiei argued aloud. "All he has to do is lie still and silent if there's even a chance of being attacked. If the currents didn't rip his ship apart or toss it back and forth through time as it drifted, any weapons fired upon him would turn the Gate on the other ship."

Picard paced slightly. "Do you know anything more about the Gate? What's beyond it, for example?"

"No, Captain. Only the reports from observers, and you seem to have all the data we do. There might have been something in the confidential files at Starfleet Headquarters—but obscure spatial phenomena were not exactly a priority."

Riker sighed. "Do I want to know why you were into the confidential—and coincidentally enough, tightly sealed—files?"

"No, and we wouldn't tell you anyway; it's not at all important."

"So we're flying blind, with only the word of a defector and sensor readings, into a Maelstrom that could destroy either of us in a heartbeat?" Riker asked his captain, already pretty sure he knew what the answer would be.

"So it would seem. We'll get the coordinates from the ship's records, as I doubt anyone besides perhaps Mr. Data knows them off-hand." He turned and walked briskly for the shuttlebay door.

"More chasing wild geese," Picard's Number One sighed with a secret smile.

_The thing about a wild goose chase, speaking as one who has actually chased a wild goose,_ none of the command team heard, _is that occasionally, you catch it._

_And until then, as I recall, you look pretty silly. And Fenell is substantially more dangerous than a goose, kitsune._

**

* * *

**

"All stop," Captain Picard commanded.

Even as the _Enterprise_ decelerated from a surprisingly short number of hours at top warp and beyond, asking for and receiving a miracle from the warp engines, the residual traces of their warp field reacted with the suburbs of Hel's Gate, extending out to three AUs—three times the distance of Earth to the Sun. The resulting jolt impacted with the hull, causing feedback in several unshielded systems and dimming lights around the ship momentarily until the warp field completely died away.

On the main viewscreen, the Gate shone with an eerie golden and red radiance. Orange and bronze hues overcast the lighter shades of the cloud. A much darker, sullen red glow throbbed just beyond the reliable bounds of the sensors, manifesting as an elusive tendency only visible at the edge of the eye and with a healthy dose of imagination. Within the cloud, jolts of interstellar lightning split the vapors. Despite the lack of sound, the sound and smell of a crackle of ozone suggested itself. The sensors of the _Enterprise_, despite their best efforts, failed to penetrate any substantial distance.

"Mr. Data," Picard said, after giving his officers a few moments—no more—to admire the Gate, "analysis."

"Sensors are highly ineffective," Data said crisply, plying his Ops board. "However, they do indicate that this sector of Hel's Gate is made up of particulate matter from an unknown source. This is most likely the case throughout the region. Analysis of the particles reveals widely assorted elements, including hydrogen, lithium, and uranium in highest quantities. It is also composed of other substances not on record with the computer." He switched programs. "Captain, infernium trail does lead directly into the Gate."

"Noted. Transfer the coordinates to Mr. Crusher's console. Mr. Crusher, stick to that trail."

"Aye, sir, receiving coordinates now."

"Captain," Commander Riker spoke up from his seat at the captain's right hand, "recommend we proceed on minimal emergency power only."

"Excellent suggestion, Number One. Mr. Data, switch to emergency lockdown mode. No nonessential functions are to be carried out until we leave the Gate. Mr. Worf, lower shields."

"Sir!" the Klingon protested immediately. "There is a known hostile and a battle ahead. Proceeding unshielded not only exposes the ship to the partially unknown and potentially dangerous substance of the Gate, but leaves us vulnerable to attack. I do not recommend lowering shields at this time."

"Understood, Mr. Worf. Nonetheless, we cannot survive the Gate with our shield energy confronting that of Hel's Gate at every moment. The energy absorbed by the currents within has been reported magnified back upon its originator. The same rules apply to phaser fire. We can neither fire nor be fired upon within the Gate. My order stands."

"Aye, sir," Worf rumbled, and entered the command as the lights darkened and went out. The bridge was lit only by the blue tracking lights that ran along the floor, and even those were faded to a degree. The same thing would be happening around the ship, with only essential loci such as engineering and sickbay maintaining even a quarter of their accustomed power. In nonessential areas, only a single, very faint at best light would provide illumination. Under emergency lockdown, all computers and other devices in those areas would be shut down until the crisis had abated, and minimal life support only would be engaged.

"Red Alert. Take us in, Mr. Crusher, full impulse. Engage."

Carefully, Wesley guided the ship past the indefinite border of the cloud. Without delay, the _Enterprise_ was buffeted by the currents that ran through the Gate. With a neat bit of quick thinking, Wesley brought them back on course, compensating continually for the turbulence. Despite his best efforts, though, their own impulse wake and emissions continually attracted the attention and charges of the volatile particles within the cloud, shaking the ship without pause. The vibration was noticeable, but not problematic, although the repeated impacts would eventually cause more intense damage to the outer hull.

Captain Picard didn't even have to ask for a report before Data gave him one. "The interior of Hel's Gate is highly turbulent, Captain. We may not be able to safely follow the exact route taken by _Alameda_ without suffering damage."

"Mr. Data, activate passive sensors. As long as we're here, we may as well make the best of it."

"Aye, sir," Data responded as his fingers flew across the panel.

"Sir," he reported a second later, "although passive sensors are limited, I believe these gravimetric currents not only propel matter through space, but also through time, and presumably both in some cases, although this cannot be ascertained without more rigorous testing."

_Through time?_ "Mr. Data, can you assemble a preliminary map of these currents?" Picard asked. "Use active sensors at your discretion."

"I will try, sir," Data said determinedly, and returned to his work, despite the ongoing shuddering.

"Mr. Crusher, do not follow the trail through any fluctuations of any kind, even if it leads directly through, until we get a clearer picture of our environment," he ordered.

"Understood, Captain," Ensign Crusher responded absently as he brought the ship back on course yet again.

Behind the command chair, Lieutenant Worf's panel suddenly blared wildly as the ship was propelled sharply to starboard. Wesley gave a hastily muffled shout of surprise as the _Enterprise_ was nearly shoved into a current that crackled with ominous energy.

"_Alameda _off port bow!" Worf reported. "It is attempting to force us into a nearby current, where we would be at increased risk!"

"Shove back, Mr. Crusher," Picard ordered, standing.

The bigger _Enterprise_ carefully moved away from the current, venting energy from the impulse engines unavoidably. It responded violently, emitting charges that exploded through the cloud at half the speed of light. Both _Enterprise_ and _Alameda_ were struck. Multiple impacts left charred streaks across their hulls. On _Alameda_, the energy encountered matter, threaded through the hull, resistant to its charge. The areas it could not travel through appeared, in the glow of the Gate, to be pits of darkness veining the ship, which was shaded a sullen brown by Hel's Gate.

Taking advantage of her foe's damage, and disregarding her own, which La Forge and his engineering team would be already hard at work on, the _Enterprise_ swung around to impact slowly, almost gently, with the green Orion ship. Their respective engines strained against each other, neither daring to fire despite and because of their proximity. Not only would the inexplicable energies of the Gate violently punish anyone tossing energy weapons through it, at such a range, the explosion would damage the instigator possibly almost more than the victim.

Maneuvering slightly, the _Enterprise_ began to win the kinetic battle, driving _Alameda_ backwards, and towards the fringes of the Gate. The smaller ship struggled, attempting to twist away and perhaps dart past, but they were limited by how much energy they could expend in the process without being smashed up by their own output. Gradually, the two ships emerged in tandem from the volatile cloud.

Unfortunately for the _Enterprise_, if they proceeded in this way for too long, _Alameda_, being pushed, would get clear of the danger zone first, therefore being able to fire mere moments before _Enterprise_.

"Mr. Crusher, increase speed to 105 percent impulse on my mark, then drop back to full power only for two seconds. Mr. Worf, be prepared to fire the moment we exit the cloud. Keep an eye on those boundaries.

"Mark," Picard said clearly, sitting back down.

The impulse engines protested as they were forced beyond their design limits. Half a second later, they dropped back to their normal output. _Alameda_ was propelled out of the cloud, with the Starfleet ship still protected by the vapors. In the blink of an eye, the nose of the saucer section, including the forward phaser banks, left the cloud. The rest of the saucer and the stardrive section did not have time to follow before Mr. Worf fired on _Alameda_ with laudable accuracy, targeting weapons and propulsion systems.

Residual traces, thrown out of the Gate, crackled briefly in the void of space, but far greater explosions were the ones along _Alameda._ The green ship reeled back with main phaser banks fused, unable to fire. As they scrambled to bring secondary weapons to bear, Mr. Worf fired again, and even the secondary phasers were completely obliterated in the blaze of weapons energy.

"Fire again," Picard ordered. "Knock out those warp engines, Mr. Worf."

Worf was only too happy to obey, and a skillful shot severed the starboard nacelle. It drifted, with half of the pylon still attached, into deep space, where it spun leisurely, venting plasma into the void.

Seizing the chance at a suicide shot, the weapons officer aboard _Alameda_ fired off two torpedoes, one at the _Enterprise_, and the other at the free-floating nacelle. The former impacted with the shields of the bigger ship, sending the deflector status down to fifty percent. The latter, however, had no shields to contend with. The still-venting plasma vaporized quite fiercely, combined with the antimatter that the torpedo was armed with.

The resulting explosion filled the space between the two ships. Arching tendrils reached into Hel's Gate, which consumed the energy quite promptly, and just as quickly vomited it back at them. The _Enterprise_ was shielded, if only partially, and weathered the blast. Around the ship, damage reports wailed for attention. The inertial dampers failed, inevitably, and almost everyone, except for the redoubtable Mr. Data, was thrown from their chairs.

"Shields are holding," Worf said, as he picked himself back up and dragged himself to his station. "Warp drive is off line."

"Status of _Alameda?_" Picard asked, regaining his seat. Across the bridge, Commander Riker helped Troi up from where she'd been thrown against the closed turbolift door.

"Captain, _Alameda_ is dead in space," Data reported calmly. "She is incapable of warp or impulse drive, although scans indicate maneuvering thrusters are online. All weapons systems are inoperative. Life support is on minimal power, but holding."

"Life signs?"

"Forty-two, sir."

"Are the sensors picking up on the infernium?" Picard asked urgently.

Data plied his console. "Yes, Captain," he said at last. "Although, the reported amount stolen is 2.65 kilograms greater than that currently on board."

"That's not good," Riker said with profound understatement. "Data, did you take into account the infernium brought on board by Mordecai?"

"Yes, sir. The figure stands."

"So, did they already sell—what was it? —2.65 kilograms?" Troi asked.

"They got away," a familiar voice hissed as the turbolift door swished open. Picard didn't even have to turn around to realize that Kurama and Hiei had joined them.

"How do you know?" Riker asked.

"A warp-capable shuttlecraft departed from their hanger bay just after you severed their nacelle. Fenell and his closest confidents are on board, armed with infernium weapons they've constructed," Hiei informed them.

"Data, do our sensors confirm that?" Picard asked.

Data checked his board. "No, sir. However, there is an empty hanger bay."

"So," Picard said, turning back to the demons, "how do you know something our sensors don't?" He believed them—it sounded plausible—but was still reluctant to go by unproved data.

"I _am_ a jaganshi. I see things others can't, and I was watching. Fenell was never one to stay in a sinking ship."

"What in hell is a jaganshi?" Picard asked, rubbing his shoulder irritably. It was beginning to ache, and he suspected he might have broken it. Under normal circumstances, he would have gone down to Sickbay by now, or requested an orderly, but Dr. Crusher would have her hands solidly full with more serious injuries by now.

Hiei sighed, as if tempted to call them all 'fools' and ignore them completely. Instead of explaining in words, he tugged the bandana across his forehead off. As the cloth came away in his hand, a third eye opened briefly, then closed as he replaced the bandana.

"Fenell has gotten away," Kurama said before anyone could react. "Fortunately, he's only in a shuttle capable of warp three at the most."

"Warp three or warp nine, we can't catch him," Wesley spoke up. "The warp drive is off line."

"Oh," Kurama said softly. "That complicates things."

"Yes, it does," Picard agreed. "We'll keep our sensors on him once we find his shuttlecraft—I presume the _sensors_, at least, are online?"

"Aye, sir, functioning at full power," one of the ensigns manning the consoles along the back wall said.

"Good. Unless you two can wave your hands and repair the warp core, we're going to have to wait here."

"Sorry, Captain, that's not within our powers," Kurama sighed. "But-"

"What now?"

"A message was transmitted before you engaged _Alameda_ in battle. The Lhyarri fleet is coming, Captain, and they're not more than six hours away."

Picard tapped his personal console, hoping rather belatedly that the comm system was working. "Bridge to Engineering."

Geordi's voice, sounding very harassed, came over the functional commlink. "We're _working_ on it, bridge!"

"Understood. Do you have a time frame yet?"

La Forge sighed. "Six hours, give or take a few minutes."

"Is that a best-case scenario?" Picard asked. They would be cutting it very tight…

"Unfortunately, yes. Why?"

"Because," Picard informed him, "the Lhyarri fleet will be here at almost exactly the same time, and Fenell, some of his crew, and more than two kilograms of infernium, have escaped."

"Oh," Geordi said. "I'll try to speed it up a little, but I can't promise anything…Engineering out."

The commsystem went dead.

"So it's a race against time," Riker complained. "How are we supposed to catch up with Fenell if we've got a fleet on our tail?"

The bridge was silent. No one volunteered a suggestion.

"This is a very interesting map," Kurama said finally. He had moved to the back of the bridge and was using a formerly unoccupied station. Looking back, Picard saw that he had gone completely still, and, despite his calm words, was radiating an air of excitement. "This is a _very_ interesting map."

"So?" Wesley asked. "What does that have to do with Fenell?"

"Because…" Kurama said, and then fell silent. Turning to Hiei, he beckoned him over, and they both stared at it. Trying to listen in, and failing, Deanna was nevertheless sure they were talking very, very fast.

"We're going to have to split up," Kurama added finally. "And we're going to need a shuttlecraft…and we're going to need time."

"How much time?" Picard asked. "You have six hours."

"Actually, Captain, I believe we have a lot more than that—even though it's already passed."

"Say what?" Riker said, speaking for everyone.

"_Enterprise_ will deal with the Lhyarri," Kurama explained. "Hiei and I will handle Fenell…although we may have to summon up a little help."

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:**Yes, I know. Give me a chance to talk my way out of the physics of Hel's Gate, please. If you combine hydrogen, lithium, and uranium, and fill an area three times the orbit of Earth with them, you _will_ get the biggest and most radioactive explosion this side of the Big Bang. In _Dujonian's Hoard_, a dimensional wormhole at the center of the Gate leads to an alternate universe. They didn't say much about the physics of that universe—too bad—but I assume it's also composed of alternate matter as well, therefore the 'unknowns' in the particulate matter stream are 'alternate matter,' counteracting/neutralizing their this-universe counterparts. The balance is only tipped when excess energy, like impulse engines or phaser fire, is exposed to the elements and anti-elements. Then, well, boom. More scientific nonsense for your reading pleasure.

**Chat:**

**The Nth Degree:** Wow. I'd better write, huh? This is the second time I've been threatened via review. The first was a friend offering to bring a sledgehammer to school if I didn't review her fictionpress story. (Curiously enough, neither of us followed through.) A sword, however…yikes. It's a pretty sharp sword, too, if you can get it away from him… He could have just been a disposable red-shirt sort of character that's genuinely clueless. So glad everything's making sense…I do try to slip Reg in every so often for you…. As to timeframe, it's between 'Best of Both Worlds' and 'Final Mission'. One moment while I consult my timeline…How about right after 'Remember Me'? That's about halfway between the two. Stardate? I have no idea how to calculate those things…

**grayangle:** If I have one rule, it is that I don't drop stories. A collection of one-shots is on temporary hold at the moment, but only because this has my full attention—it's hard to concentrate on TNG, YYH, and Inu-Yasha all at the same time. It'll resume once I'm done with this. As to mindless action, I have found in YYH that filler usually means random brawling often for laughs; and I've been thinking about that (or lack of it) because it just doesn't fit in on the Enterprise or, indeed, this story. YYH is more than a little bit silly by nature and I've been trying to keep the worst of it out here.

**KHnews hound:** That's the fun of Star Trek machinery. It looks big and impressive and it works. Simulacra…well, I was rereading old favorites (in my copious spare time) and although it was supposed to be, like in the books, composed of pure magic—I don't like using that term, but can't think of anything else—I guess your version works too.


	12. Unorthodox Measures

**Chapter Twelve: Unorthodox Measures**

**Warning! Contains Time Travel!** I have a bit of very good advice from Voyager's Captain Janeway about dealing with time travel: "Don't even try." **Second Warning: **Some new (to Sleight of Hand) characters are taking the stage. YYH-literate readers have probably guessed who… What else is there to say? Oh yes:

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

"Shuttlepod _Onizuka_, you are cleared for launch," Data's voice crackled across the commlink.

"Acknowledged, bridge," Kurama replied, triggering the commsystem with one hand. "Ready to launch."

"Run us through again; just what are you planning?" Picard joined the conversation from the bridge.

"It's very simple, Captain," he explained patiently. "We're going into Hel's Gate, traveling along one of the fluctuations, and picking up some old friends. Then we're coming back and going after Fenell and whoever he's got with him."

"Do you know what you're doing?" Picard demanded suspiciously.

_He's really catching on to us,_ the redhead thought mirthfully. Out loud, he replied, "No, but it will work out anyway. Don't worry, Captain, we're not going to steal your shuttlecraft."

_Hmm…you sure?_

_Let's finish this problem up first, and then we'll consider stealing it._ Finishing the preflight routines, he cut off whatever the captain would have retorted with by lifting the small _Onizuka_ off the bay floor. A soft roar of engines, which would soon vanish into the void, accompanied the craft's movements.

"Opening bay doors," Data continued, monitoring the activity in the bay from twelve decks away.

"Departing shuttlebay," he ended the routine. Cutting off the commlink before Data could initiate any further procedural banalities, Kurama leaned back in the pilot's chair and sent the shuttlepod spinning towards Hel's Gate.

_We spent three hundred years getting away from those idiots,_ Hiei continued to grumble in the back of his mind. _And at the first sign of trouble, here we are running to go get them again._

_Hardly the first sign. We've never gotten the chance to try something like this before._

_We can handle this on our own. _

_How were you planning to get within range to kill him if Fenell's armed with infernium?_

He wasn't expecting an answer, and didn't get one, merely a change of tactics with _When have we ever needed those idiots?_

_No one has ever accused you of sentimentality, have they?_ he teased his companion.

_Not even you would dare._

_Must you have the last word?_

_Makes a nice change,_ the koorime snapped back without rancor as the amber-red of the Gate enveloped their craft.

Immediately pummeled by the least intense fluctuations, propelled only a few kilometers, as opposed to the light-years the more dangerous eddies would transport a ship, the lights, although redundant due to the glow of the Gate and the demons' far superior senses, quickly failed, and power ceased to flow to any systems but the thrusters.

_Rough, _Kurama commented.

_Perhaps, but we've felt worse though. The _Enterprise _would be much slower—too big to maneuver properly._ A pause. _One of the nice things about being small._

"Tell Kuwabara. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear about it."

That wasn't worthy of a reply, although the idea that he probably wouldn't understand anyway lurked in both minds without either suggesting it. "We're almost there. Hang on."

A sudden burst of power created recoil that tossed the little _Onizuka_ into the roiling current that would, if all went well, throw them dozens of light-years away and three hundred years back.

If all did not go well…

Well, they'd deal with it.

**

* * *

**

"_Onizuka_ has vanished from sensors," Data reported.

"How will we know if they are successful?" Deanna asked.

"If they come back," Picard muttered, "and not before." He tapped his commbadge. "Engineering, this is the bridge. Report."

"Repairs are-are in progress, Captain," Barclay's nervous voice crackled over the link.

"Lieutenant?" Captain Picard asked, slightly startled by the unexpected if not wholly unfamiliar voice. "Where is Mr. La Forge?"

"Jeffries Tube 73, Capt-captain, at last communication. I-I can patch you th-through to him—"

"No, there's no need for that, Lieutenant. Do you have a time estimate?"

A pause. "Five hours, twenty-three minutes, sir."

The captain raised one eyebrow. "That is commendably precise, Mr. Barclay."

"Data would have added milliseconds," Commander Riker muttered conspiratorially for everyone to hear.

Picard shot his Number One a look as Barclay explained, "The d-dilithium crystals had a hairline fracture, Captain, a-a-and we had to deactivate the plasma injectors to re-replace the crystals. The plasma needs tha-that much time to recharge."

"Understood," Picard sighed, pacing the bridge restlessly. "I suppose not even the redoubtable Mr. La Forge can speed up plasma. Are other repairs proceeding?"

"Aye, Captain. Maybe it was because everything was shut down, but less than you might think got fried." As he continued to talk about something he knew, his habitual stutter decreased. "The shields are back up to eighty-five percent, but we'll soon have them up to full power for you, sir!"

"Excellent, carry on, Lieutenant," Picard praised him. "Bridge out."

"You've done a great job with him, Deanna," Riker told the half-Betazoid.

Troi smiled. She had been working very hard with the chronically shy and perpetually nervous Barclay, and was pleased that their sessions had borne fruit.

Picard continued to pace, uncomfortable with his ship being unable to maneuver. "Mr. Worf, any sign of the Lhyarri fleet on sensors?"

"No sir. However, I have located Fenell's shuttlecraft."

"Put it on main viewer."

"They are out of visual range."

"Put tactical on main viewer anyway, Mr. Worf."

"Aye, sir," the big Klingon muttered, manipulating his controls. A second later, a vividly colored tactical display materialized on the big forward viewscreen.

In the center was the _Enterprise_, represented by a pulsing white dot. Almost right on top of it, an amorphous cloud-shape with tentacles, presumably Hel's Gate, was a flat red. The bottom starboard corner was graced with an oscillating green dot slowly moving out of the chart—Fenell's shuttlecraft.

"Sensors are unreliable upon attempting to obtain readings within the Gate from without," Worf rumbled, explaining the lack of detail almost apologetically.

"Understood. Where is the Lhyarri fleet predicted to enter scanning range?"

Worf tapped at his console. "At current status, we will pick them up on sensors approximately three hours before rendezvous. Extrapolating from their last known position and departure trajectory, they will most likely approach from this direction." In the top left corner of the screen, a scatter of blue dots appeared, flashed briefly, and then vanished.

Riker studied the diagram. "Mr. Worf, could we use Hel's Gate as a shield of sorts?"

"Sir?"

"Your predictions show them approaching from the opposite side of the Gate. Could we maneuver at impulse around the Gate, keeping it between them and us?"

"At best, they would be diverted for only a short while. They do, after all, outnumber us. In a battle of one against one, your strategy, commander, would be more effective."

"But it could buy us time if we need it," the captain added. "And, if they're forced to split up, the number coming against us at any one time is greatly diminished. They can't come through the Gate's area without risking severe damage, so they would have to change course to box us in. Good thinking, Commander. Mr. Worf, run simulations. I need you to analyze the probable result of a diminished-odds battle such as Number One outlines."

"Sir, with respect, the results will be highly suspect. As of yet, we have no data on their weaponry nor tactics in battle."

"Do your best, Mr. Worf. Mr. Data, I believe Mr. Worf has located Fenell's shuttlecraft. While he is running the projections, can you extrapolate their course? The least we can do is have a destination to give our allies by the time they get back."

"Captain, they appear to be headed for a small M-class planetoid in the Anaran system, approximately two point five light-years away. Although the class of shuttlecraft they appear, at this range, to be using is ideally capable of only Warp Three, their current velocity indicates that they are overloading their engines to achieve Warp Five. It will be another hour and a half before they reach it, and their warp engines may shut down before they succeed. However, any engineering knowledge that can boost the engine output so drastically is unpredictable, and their ultimate status is yet unknown. The planetoid that is their destination is uninhabited; there are no known settlements, either native or foreign, known. It is approximately the size of Earth's Moon, and orbits in a 257 day year, with 28.9 hour days—"

"Yes, that's quite enough, Mr. Data."

"Sorry, sir."

"Digging in," Riker said softly.

"What was that, Number One?"

"They're getting ready for a last stand, I would assume. In a shuttlecraft that's only capable of Warp Three—Warp Five if you're willing to sacrifice the ship—they can't get anywhere anytime soon out here, so they're taking the last option left to them. When your back's against the wall, you have to stand and fight."

**

* * *

**

It was a full-fledged fight at Genkai's temple. Not unusual. Inside, said small woman rose, and not even bothering to try to break it up, slid the door closed forcibly. Any hope of the resulting slam making an impression on the brawling teens outside was lost as a new volley of shouting broke out.

It really wasn't worth interfering; nothing the elder lady or anyone else said or did had any effect. The two had probably fought the first day they met, and would probably be fighting the last day they ever saw each other.

_And they're supposed to fight TOGETHER?_ _Unlikely, to say the least. _

Yet, despite their antipathy toward each other, they were a formidable team.

She winced through a sip of tea as something crashed to the ground; she didn't dare see what. In the week since Yusuke and Kuwabara had been invited at all but gunpoint to the Dark Tournament, a demon take-no-prisoners contest, something, usually skin, but sometimes scenery and/or furniture, had been broken each day.

Briefly considering at least seeing what they'd done _now_, she abandoned the notion in favor of her tea when two demon auras flickered on the edge of her senses. Normally, she'd be up in a moment to run them off if two demons turned up, but at the moment, and from the feel of the auras, maybe she would get some peace and quiet.

She set her tea aside and opened the door a crack, looking around through the small gap. "Ohaiyou," she growled over the tumult. _(Good morning.)_

"Konnichi'wa, Genkai-san," Kurama's voice hailed her from the rooftop. "Bad morning?"

"Loud," she grumbled.

"What date is it?" he asked.

Taken a little aback by the odd, seemingly random, question, she gave him today's date.

"Hmm. Arigato. We'll take them off your hands for a little while then." _(Thank you.)_

"That would be kind of you. Don't bother hurrying to bring them back," she added as she retreated back into the room, closing the door again to the accompaniment of a renewed round of crashes and obscenity from a distance.

**

* * *

**

_Anything?_

_No, and I don't like it._

_Well, I don't remember meeting myself at this time, do you?_

_No…_

_What?_

_Just paranoia._

_It's strange, knowing that somewhere out in that city, there are others of us…_

_As long as we/they don't see them/us… _Confusing in syntax, the mental image that flashed into their minds, that of the Kurama and Hiei from this time confronting the time travelers, made perfect sense.

"No, that is to be avoided," Kurama agreed, turning from the view of the city to the forest behind and around Genkai's temple. He easily located Yusuke and Kuwabara by the colossal din they were making—and the flares of power they were tossing about so recklessly.

_Training, or fight?_

_Who knows?_

_Probably not even them._

_Those idiots can't tell the difference._

"Well, the longer we stay here, the more time we use up, and we're in a hurry. Besides, I've got this sinking feeling that if we stay too long, Botan or Koenma will figure out that there's someone extra on the loose—and they don't really trust us right now, remember?"

"Right. I hate to say it, but between human idiots and Spirit World idiots—"

Leaping from the temple roof, they made their way into the once-familiar forest, memories slowly returning. In their time with the Reikai Tantei, Genkai's temple had become a neutral, all-purpose meeting place, whether to coordinate a new mission, or just to hang out. During the months before the tournament, they had trained harder than ever—and a secluded temple was ideal. The typical nature of spirit energy battles—which both Kuwabara and Yusuke had been trained to use—was bright, loud, distinctive combat.

"Oi! What are you two doing here?" an overly loud yell broke through the trees as they got closer, although they were still out of sight.

"Looking for _you_ two," Kurama called back, unsurprised. Kazuma Kuwabara, the sixth sense of the team; loud, obnoxious, more than a little thick, but didn't give up—often foolishly, usually surprisingly successfully.

"Clear something up for us—is this a fight, or training?" the fox-demon asked as they joined the human, teenage members of their old team.

_I'll bet that they don't know._

_You know I don't take stupid bets._

"Uh, you know, that's a good question," Yusuke said, considering it. His hands were still glowing from his trademark Spirit Gun, and his black hair, which was usually slicked down with a substantial amount of hair gel, was tousled. "I was supposed to be training, until this oaf showed up."

"Hey, Urameshi, you liar!" Kuwabara shouted, a blade of bright golden-orange energy reappearing in his hands, dying his scruffy orange hair an even brighter shade. "I was here, and you showed up just to get on my nerves!"

"Enough," Hiei ordered them.

"I don't take orders from you, shrimp!"

"Shut up, Kuwabara," everyone told him.

_Leave the big oaf alone,_ Kurama told the smaller demon privately as Kuwabara tried to decide whom to hit with his Spirit Sword first.

_I'd almost forgotten how sick I was of that._

"Anyway, what brings you two around?" Yusuke asked, swinging an absent punch with a no-longer-glowing hand at Kuwabara's orange-haired head, and missing.

"Actually, wondering if you'd like something to do."

"Does it involve a fight?" Kuwabara asked. "I like that way of training better."

"Definitely yes."

Yusuke looked suspiciously at them. "Koenma didn't put you up to this, did he? Because then the answer's no."

"Fool. What makes you think we'd run errands for him?"

Yusuke grinned, wiping a sweaty face on his shirt. "Good point. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're stupid."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Yusuke, but you walked right into that one," Kurama told him, trying to hide a grin.

"I'll get you for that," Yusuke told the shorter demon, who didn't pay the slightest attention to the teenager's threat. "What's up?"

"There's only so much we can tell you until we're sure you're coming." _You know, Picard's going to throw a fit about the Prime Directive._

_Yes…_

"I don't like the sound of that," Yusuke muttered.

"Don't you trust us, Yusuke?" Kurama asked. His smile held just a hint of a laugh.

"Hell no," Yusuke said straight off hand. He ran his fingers through his black hair, trying to slick it back down, and grinned impishly. "When do we leave?"

"Right now," Kurama told them. _No one near?_

_Genkai._

_Close enough._ "Right, first rule where we're going—Don't touch anything. And I mean it."

"Why not?" It would be Kuwabara who'd ask.

"You'll see." He pulled a communicator from his pocket, hiding it in his hand so they wouldn't have to answer questions along the lines of 'what the hell' just yet. In Federation Standard, he hailed the _Onizuka_'s computer and ordered instant beam-out of the four life-signs in the area.

"What the hell?" Yusuke and Kuwabara chorused in shock as they disappeared into blue and silver sparks.

**

* * *

**

"Where are we?" were the first words out of Yusuke's mouth as he rematerialized in Shuttlepod _Onizuka_'s cockpit.

"Moon," Hiei replied dispassionately.

"We've been abducted by aliens!" Kuwabara shouted. He stopped short and thought about it for a moment. "Cool."

"No, you've been abducted by us—sort of," Kurama assured him, which probably wasn't particularly helpful.

"You're aliens?"

"No…" _That's going to get us nowhere._

_But you're doing very well._

_Very funny—wait a second._ Kurama spun on his heel to stare at his partner, holding up one hand to stop Kuwabara's shouting. _This is a strange time to get a sense of humor, Hiei._

_It wasn't a joke. It's true._

"Right…" he sighed aloud. Despite the mental link and three hundred years, he still wasn't able to deal with the jaganshi's obscure sense of non-humor. "Whatever. No, Kuwabara, we're not aliens. We're just not from now."

"Say what?" both humans said.

"Oh boy," Kurama sighed, sinking into the nearest chair. "This is going to be difficult. Don't touch that, Yusuke."

"Sorry," Yusuke apologized, snatching his hand from the console. "Now, what are you talking about, and what are we doing on the moon?"

"We are on the moon because it's highly unlikely Earth would be able to see the shuttlecraft from here. It's Earth's blind spot. As to what we're up to, the objective hasn't changed. There is a problem—a rogue spirit being—causing trouble in the time we just came from. Our allies are otherwise occupied and we've encountered difficulties, so we came to get you."

"How?" Kuwabara said suspiciously.

Kurama rolled his eyes. _Hiei, would you turn off the Universal Translator?_

_Sure…_

Proceeding to give Kuwabara a short, clipped lecture in Federation Standard of the bits of the physics of Hel's Gate that they'd picked up in the time they'd been in the area, Kurama was slightly amused by watching Kuwabara's eyes glaze over at the unfamiliar language.

"Hey, wait a second," Kuwabara admitted defeat, waving his hands. "I don't understand a word you're saying."

"Well, that's hardly my fault, is it?" he switched back to their mutual native Japanese without a pause. "The point is, here we are, there Fenell is, are you going to help us or not?"

"What if we say no?" Yusuke asked, rubbing one temple.

"Then we knock you out until we figure out what we're going to do about that," Hiei spoke up. _That's a really good question—for him. What _are_ we going to do?_

_Think of something on the spur of the moment. If we can keep them away from the _Enterprise, _we should be able, together, to wipe their memories of however long it takes_.

_A block wipe of hours/days?_

_They'd wake up just thinking they'd knocked each other out…I hope._

"I don't think so," Yusuke glared.

"Oh, really?"

"Of course we're coming! Better than waiting for some referee from the Dark Tournament to turn up and throw some monkey wrench at us!"

"And what about you, Kuwabara?"

"Duh! I'm not letting Urameshi have all the fun," the tall teenager bellowed.

"Good. Once we've crossed the Gate and gotten onto Fenell's trail, we'll fill you in on what we're up against."

"Cool," Yusuke said. "I wanna see the future. Just two more questions."

"What are those, Yusuke?"

"First, where'd you get the ship?"

"We stole it," Hiei snapped—a perfectly plausible scenario, if also completely untrue.

Kurama glared at him. _We haven't stolen it yet. _"And?"

The Spirit Detective grinned. "You got anything to eat on this spaceship?"

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** As you can probably tell, YYH fans, the timeframe I pulled Yusuke and Kuwabara from is mid-Book Six, a few months before the Dark Tournament. Two reasons for this: one plot-wise, one personal. Plot-wise, this is after the four Reikai Tantei have been established as a group. However, it's before they get really good, as I'm not going to make things too easy, and there's a long stretch of 'occupied' time (as far as I know) during the Dark Tournament arc. The second reason is, very simplyand rather pathetically, I'm only familiar with up to Book Eight. Past that, I know only fanon gossip, if that makes sense to anyone. I haven't found a translation site, and can't watch the episodes. **AN Update:** Short passages have been thrashed into shape. Nothing noticeable except the ideas about memory-deletion and the time-frame.

**Chat: **

**grayangle: **A most interesting tangent—I don't know, exactly. Let's see what I can make up… Quite possibly, the shot's kinetic energy could set off the reaction and 'charge' the weapon. That would make it quite dangerous, I suppose. Unfortunately the _Enterprise_ does not keep spears on board in copious supply. Hypothetically, an unarmed torpedo would be able to be launched, but torpedoes are noticeably blunt, so the impact probably wouldn't do much damage, and the launching energy might set it off at the source, yes…hmm, I'm rambling. Will have to think about that one. Pilots tend to panic when their ships get that close (although Tom Paris is pretty good) so there aren't too many examples of kinetic battles in Star Trek.

**KHnews hound: **I'm writing as fast as I can…ok, maybe not, but I have to take time off to do my homework and make sure I'm in 'Star Trek' voice. And my brain will explode if I don't get a few hours/days off—and then I can't update at all. Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'm not done with space battles…at least one more on the way, as you've probably noticed, so I'm glad you liked this one. Now I have to write something really impressive to trump it.

_In Memoriam:_

_Michael Piller— 1948—2005_


	13. Slingshot Effect

**Chapter Thirteen: Slingshot Effect**

**Disclaimer:** The _Enterprise_ belongs to Captain Picard: I'll sic Paramount on _him_ if they come calling. If they bother him, he can get Worf to shoot them out of the sky. Then all Star Trek fanwriters can point and laugh.

**Author's Note: **People with really good memories may notice that the titles for chapters one and two have been changed. _No content has been altered_, only a pair of lame titles. Also, Chapter Twelve has been slightly altered to reflect a more canonical take on sixth-book YYH, and has a couple extra sentences on how they're going to circumvent the Prime Directive. Always fun, that.

**Apology:** Yes, I know the chapter's late…I'm sorry… Someone found my Active/Passive switch and locked me in Passive Mode. Riiiiiiight. True Story: I'm lazy, on break for Thanksgiving, and finals are coming. Ok, forget all that, although it's mostly true. More realistically, I couldn't get this chapter to sound right—this is the third or fourth version. And the stupid keyboard of EVILNESS decided to give out on me again…(I apologize for the odd-sounding monologue, but I just got back from a friend's house and my second viewing of Harry Potter 4 in two days. Also, it's really early right now…or really late…depending.) I'm such a slacker, but you all love me...Right?_ (looks cross-eyed at business end of weapons pointed at nose)_ OKAY then...

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

"Status of the Lhyarri cruiser," Picard requested curtly, sitting tensely into his command chair and trying to pretend that he was perfectly at ease.

"The ship has taken up a holding position on the other side of Hel's Gate," Worf reported brusquely. "Sensors cannot obtain accurate readings through the matter cloud."

"What _do_ the sensors tell us?" Riker asked.

"Their energy output is surprisingly high, allowing me to detect them. If they lower their power by fifty-three percent, we will be unable to detect them, possibly due to unusual hull construction. Preliminary readings indicate that the ship is approximately twice the size of the _Enterprise_; in addition, they out-mass what would be typical of a Federation or Fed-allied construction of that size."

"Speculation, Mr. Worf?" the captain requested.

"The hull appears unusually dense, perhaps as a compensation for insufficient shields. The composition of the hulls is unknown. I am unable to read anything more through the radiation."

"Radiation? Is the ship or crew at risk?"

"No sir, not with our shields raised, and our previous exposure was insufficient to present any significant effects."

The captain scowled, although reassured that his ship had not been damaged by the radiation. "Mr. Data, I want you to reconfigure the sensors to penetrate Hel's Gate. We can't afford a blind spot in a battle against a ship that size."

"Aye, sir," Data said, fingers already flying.

"Picard to Engineering," he hailed, thumbing the panel at his left hand. "Do we have warp drive back yet?"

"We've almost got it, Captain," La Forge replied.

"I need it now, Mr. La Forge. We've got a very large ship riding herd on us up here."

Geordi sighed audibly. "I can give you Warp One for about a minute, but then we'll be right back where we started. Or, you can wait five more minutes and have all the warp drive you want. I'm sorry, Captain," he continued in a more conciliatory tone, "but the plasma manifolds aren't quite stabilized yet, and piling more of my people on it simply won't do any good."

"Understood. We'll have to stall them. Every second counts, Mr. La Forge. Bridge out."

"Captain," Data spoke up as Picard turned off the intercom. "I have reconfigured the forward sensors to penetrate Hel's Gate in its current state, however, the constant alterations in the cloud's composition make it unreliable, and the modifications will not be valid for long."

"Excellent work, Mr. Data. Tell us about the Lhyarri ship."

Data tapped at his board for a few quick seconds, and then said, "The Lhyarri vessel's hull is unusually dense, and is polarized." He paused.

"Continue."

"Captain, I believe they are experiencing malfunctions, due to the influence of the radiation emitted from Hel's Gate. Their power matrix is experiencing severe fluctuations, and is affecting several shipboard functions to a degree visible even at this distance."

"They may be uniquely unsuited for such a chaotic region of space," Riker mused. "It could be that they were called out here unprepared. We are quite a way away from where we last encountered the Lhyarri."

"That may be, Number One. We may not even have to fight them. I will not order an attack on a crippled ship. Mr. Data, can the sensors read anything else?"

"I am unable to obtain further information, sir. They have shut off power to protect themselves from the backlash of the anomaly."

"Why have we not been affected similarly?"

"On the contrary, Captain, we have been; however, we are at a greater distance from its perimeter, and the shields have been modified to filter out the greater part of the radiation. Not only does the Lhyarri vessel lack advanced shielding, they have been using the phenomenon to mask their approach, on the theory that we could not penetrate the cloud."

"A flawed theory, it would seem."

"Aye, sir." Data paused to consult with his panel. "Captain, the vessel has shut off or significantly lowered power to protect themselves. It is now at a level at which we cannot detect them."

"That's going to be inconvenient," Riker complained. "If they can just shut off all power and sit, we could be floundering around in the dark for far too long."

"I will work on it, sir."

"You have about three minutes, Mr. Data."

"Understood."

Picard thought quickly, checking off points in his head. "Status of the infernium recovery and _Alameda_ rescue?" he asked the bridge at large.

"Complete thirty minutes ago, sir," Riker said quickly, consulting his panel. "Forty-two crewmembers of assorted races, including Orions, Chalnoth, Andorians, and Lhyarri, are behind level-nine forcefields in Cargo Bay Two. The infernium has been placed in stasis on Deck 15, in Science Lab A."

"Good," Picard said tersely. That was half of their mission successfully done. The only impediment to the remainder was, at the moment, setting off proximity alarms on Data and Worf's boards.

"Captain! Five smaller Lhyarri vessels have been launched from the area where the cruiser was last seen. They are closing to a distance of sixty million kilometers. Their limited shields are raised," Worf reported. "The mother-ship still does not register on sensors."

"Mr. Data?"

"There was not time to find the proper scanning frequency," Data said apologetically.

"Shields up. Yellow Alert. Open a hailing frequency," Picard commanded, rising to his feet and settling his red and black uniform back into place.

"Hailing frequencies open," Data reported.

"Lhyarri cruisers," Picard began, "this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation _Starship Enterprise._ State your business in this sector."

A tense pause ricocheted around the bridge.

"They are not responding, Captain," Data stated.

The ship shuddered dully as a torpedo impacted with the forward shields, fired from the lead ship. Automatically, damage reports siphoned themselves to Worf's console.

"Shields at sixty-six percent and rising," the Klingon said brusquely. "No damage to the ship."

"A warning shot," Riker muttered into his beard. "The universal greeting when you don't like someone."

"Agreed," Picard replied, having dropped back into his command chair. "Is the channel still open?"

"Aye, sir."

"Lhyarri vessels, withdraw at once. Stand down or we will retaliate with force."

The predatory, smaller ships remained silent, still advancing on the _Enterprise_. They spread out from their tight cluster, and assumed positions around the _Enterprise_ saucer. Only two now remained on the forward viewer; the rest were out of the current frame.

"Mr. Data, get Tactical from Mr. Worf and put it on split-screen with forward view," Riker requested.

"Aye sir, receiving information. On screen."

The Main Viewscreen seemed to split in two. Half still showed the two forward Lhyarri vessels, but the other half changed to show the familiar diagram of Hel's Gate and its surroundings. Fenell's green dot was nowhere to be seen, and although the white _Enterprise_-dot hadn't moved, five blue indicators now hovered about it like vultures, to starboard, port, directly forward, and above and below.

"We do have an escape route directly astern," Ensign Crusher reminded them.

"True, unless they launch others and move to cover that area," Riker said gently.

"Unlikely, sir," Data said, checking his monitor. "In order to ambush us without being seen, they would have to maintain extremely low power levels in order to remain undetected. Without noticeable power emissions, any reinforcement ships would not be able to maneuver on more than impulse power, and it would take, at full impulse, approximately one hour and thirty-eight point four minutes to reach our current position from their last known location." _(AN—these are real true numbers according to the Star Trek Encyclopedia and my graphing calculator.)_

"Very good. Inform us if there is even a possibility of reinforcements moving in," Picard ordered.

"Yes, sir."

"Captain!" Worf cried. "The lead ship is charging weapons!" On the Tactical readout, the ship he had indicated began to flash.

"Fire a warning shot at half power, Lieutenant."

Worf tapped his panel curtly, and an orange beam momentarily connected the _Enterprise_ and the closest Lhyarri cruiser. Part of the hull plating darkened slightly, only to return to its original color three seconds later.

"No damage to lead vessel. Hull plating is regenerating," Worf reported, then consulted his panel. A moment later, the other four dots also began to flash. "The other ships are charging weapons."

"Red Alert. Keep shields at maximum. Bridge to Engineering," Picard hailed, thumbing the built-in intercom on the arm of his chair. "Warp status?"

"Seven seconds, Captain…"

"Mr. Crusher, on my mark, take us out backwards through the hole in their formation."

"Six."

"Aye, sir, course laid in."

"Five."

"The ship to starboard is firing, Captain," Worf informed them. As Geordi counted "four," the _Enterprise_ was once again hit, and was shaken rather roughly. Wesley, resolutely staying in his seat, held them in position, preparing to jump to warp.

"Three."

"Captain!" Data said urgently. "Three cruisers have dropped out of maximum warp directly astern."

"Dammit!" Riker hissed. "That's overkill!"

"Ensign, plot course 000 mark 0. Mr. Worf, open fire directly ahead!" Picard ordered.

"Bridge, we have full warp capacity—now if you'll excuse me, I'll organize the repair teams we'll be needing shortly."

"Now is not the time, Geordi, though we appreciate it," Riker told him as the channel was closed from Engineering.

Beams of energy lashed out from the _Enterprise_'s saucer section, licking across the enemy ship's hull. The plating visibly scorched, but before it could burn away to the degree where it would damage the actual ship, the other seven ships jumped to the defense of their comrade. Alarms wailed as the bigger ship came under attack from all sides.

"Shields dropping, Captain," Worf reported, grimly clinging to the security arch with one hand while manipulating his console with the others. "They have targeted sensors and weapons." Part of his panel exploded, sending sparks across the bridge before the automatic fire-suppression systems kicked in. "Targeting scanners are experiencing malfunctions. I can only keep locks on three ships at once."

"Reroute all power to shields. Target the ship dead ahead again, with all phaser banks. Mr. Crusher, hold that course," Picard ordered.

"Power is being rerouted from all nonessential systems," Data reported crisply. The bridge lights, already low due to the red alert, dimmed even further, leaving only the warning lights to bathe the bridge in a crimson glow.

"Mr. Worf, fire," Picard said coldly, taking firm hold of his chair.

The lead ship staggered back, receiving the full force of the _Enterprise_'s phasers. The rest of the attacking fleet, not to let the bigger ship pick on one of them alone, barraged them with blasts. The _Enterprise_'s shields flared, beginning to drop even further.

"Keep phasers on target," Picard gritted.

"Shields failing," Data warned, as Worf was too busy to say it.

As Ensign Crusher moved the ship forward, the Lhyarri vessel began to fall back, creating a hole in their net.

"Captain, shields are down!" Data cried.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the starboard ship locked its own phasers on the main emitters, hoping to take out the powerful beam at the source.

About to order phasers diverted, just when an escape route was opening, the captain received a momentary surprise. Despite all phasers targeting the ship dead ahead, another phaser blast impacted with the next closest ship, whose phaser banks had been just about to release another surge of energy. Surprised, the weapons officer reacted poorly, and the phasers stabbed out across the _Enterprise_, missing completely and striking the Lhyarri ship across from it.

"Where did that come from?" Riker demanded.

"It was a Federation phaser, sir…" one of the ensigns at the back consoles called.

"Possibly from a shuttlecraft?" the commander grinned, things suddenly making a little sense.

"Aye sir, possibly…" The ensign ran a scan amidst the turmoil. "Shuttlepod _Onizuka_ is directly beneath our saucer, sir!"

A moment later, Riker's personal console beeped, barely audible over the noise of battle. He read the message quickly.

_Get out of here, _Enterprise. _The little ones are only powerful in packs. Your best bet is probably to run, and let the fastest catch you one at a time._

"We're clear!" Wesley cried in a brief moment of stillness.

"Get us out of here, warp six," Picard ordered.

As the _Enterprise_ slipped into subspace, Riker pulled up a scan on his console. Amidst the chaos of eight Lhyarri cruisers scrambling to follow, one limping visibly, one warp trail led away, hot on Fenell's trail.

**

* * *

**

"Bridge to Engineering, status report," Picard said tensely as the _Enterprise_ sprinted away with the enemy fleet on her tail. The large mother ship, presumably still wallowing, was nowhere to be seen.

"We're working on the shields, Captain, but some circuits got fried and we're having to work around them. We'll let you know if there's a problem, but there definitely will be if the Lhyarri catch up to us again. I don't know how we survived eight ships, but if it happens again, we won't."

"Thank you, Mr. La Forge, bridge out." The captain thumbed the channel closed. "How did we get out of that?"

"The Lhyarri weapons are substantially less powerful than our own, well below the levels of early phasers," Worf observed, checking the records of the recent battle, which were stored on his console. "However, the synergetic effect of their weapons strained our more advanced shields to the point of collapse."

"Mr. Worf, if we were to fight only one or two at a time, what would be the result?" Riker asked, remembering the quick message.

"We would be at a significant advantage," the Klingon officer said without even needing to consult his panel. "However, they are no doubt aware of their inferiority, and will be difficult to split up."

"They are staying in a pack, Captain," Data added.

"Hmm," Picard ruminated quickly. "Mr. Crusher, warp evasive. Let's see if we can shake some of them."

"Aye, sir," Wesley said, altering their course.

Brief seconds passed before Data reported, "Sir, they have increased speed, and have changed course to intercept."

"On screen," Riker ordered.

The Main Viewer changed, now showing not only the warping stars, but also a cluster of blue-grey, vaguely shark-shaped ships accelerating to cut in front of them. They disappeared briefly as Wesley changed course to avoid a collision, then reappeared. Despite several more course changes, he was unable to shake them.

"Fast little ships," Commander Riker observed. "It's a wonder they don't crash into each other. They must have some great pilots; they're flying pretty close."

Wesley changed course again, and this time, no shark-shaped ships cut across their bows. Instead, the tactical readouts showed the little cruisers spreading out to flank the _Enterprise_, although they stayed in pairs, two above, two below, and a pair on each flank.

"Mr. Crusher, take us to warp seven, and get us out of the center of this formation," Picard commanded.

"Aye, sir, warp seven." Wesley entered the appropriate command. Moments later, he reported, "The Lhyarri ships are at warp seven point five, Captain. We're being cut off!"

"Peculiar," Deanna commented from her chair, where she'd been sitting quietly throughout all the fireworks.

"Does anyone else feel like we're being herded somewhere we don't want to go?" Wesley asked aloud.

On any other day, Picard would have reminded the youth of bridge protocol, which didn't allow outbursts like that, but today was an exception—he was getting that feeling too. About to order all stop, as it was theoretically better to sit tight than charge blindly, he changed his mind as he realized that a sitting duck would be easier for the pack of starships to hit. Still, it might be worth a try if the situation persisted.

"Captain, I'm getting some unusual readings from the space ahead," Data informed him in a puzzled tone. "There are 'dead zones,' very small, barely noticeable at this distance. The sensors are unable to get any feedback from the blank areas."

"What about the surrounding area, is there anything strange about it?"

"Strange, sir?"

"Yes, strange, Data, there isn't time for a better description now!"

"Aye, sir," Data said resignedly. "Apart from the blank spots, there is nothing outside normal parameters previously recorded in that area."

"What's our ETA to where the blank spots begin?" Riker asked, getting up to look over Data's shoulder.

"Two minutes, three seconds, sir. Mark."

"Data, could those spots be artificial?" Riker asked, squinting at the screen.

"It is possible, sir."

"Captain, I think we're being shoved into a trap," the first officer snapped. "Look at them," he gestured at the viewscreen, "herding us into somewhere with something potentially dangerous."

"Agreed. Mr. Crusher, accelerate to warp eight for three seconds on my mark, then full stop," the captain ordered.

Riker looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, put me on shipwide address."

A whistle announced him. "All hands, this is Commander Riker. Prepare for sudden deceleration. Grab something solid, and batten down the hatches. Riker out."

"Now, if we're incredibly lucky…or they're incredibly stupid…" Riker muttered as he sat back down.

"Approaching suspect area," Worf rumbled.

"Mr. Crusher, engage," Picard said, and braced himself.

The whine of the engines was nearly audible even up on the bridge as they jumped another half-warp factor. Flanking them, the Lhyarri fighters began to match them, keeping them from swerving in any direction—even though that would be a very bad idea at high warp.

"Decelerating…now!" Wesley cried, and pressed the button.

With that one touch, people all over the ship were thrown to the deck and into walls. Sirens blared, klaxons flashed—and were occasionally silenced by falling objects, which collided with the wall panels, the lights, and anything else unmoving. Unsecured furniture flew across rooms. Some consoles, insecurely bolted down or merely damaged, were wrenched from their accustomed places. Old damage, from the battles not long ago, reopened.

The _Enterprise_ screeched to a stop in space, warp field collapsing with a vengeance on the border of their destination. All around her, the Lhyarri vessels, caught by surprise, were still accelerating to keep up with their warp eight sprint, and, warp drives flashing brightly, charged right over the _Enterprise_ and into the region.

The first one blew up not two seconds after passing the border. Spinning wildly, it rendezvoused with a 'blank spot' by chance. In a flash of flame, soon extinguished in the vacuum of space, both it and the floating mine were eliminated. Overly thick on the ground (so to speak), two more quickly went the way of the lead ship.

"A minefield," Riker said to the bridge at large. "No wonder they didn't have any time to modify their big ship. They were setting this up all that time."

Picard watched the littler ships scrambling to regain their feet, as it were, without going the way of the other three. Coasting on minimal thrusters only, they edged tentatively around their own trap, trying to get out and take another whack at the _Enterprise_.

"Mr. Worf, can you target those mines?"

"Aye, sir, easily."

"Excellent. Target the ones nearest to the enemy ships and fire," he ordered curtly. "They've gone to all this trouble; it would be a shame not to use it," the captain said in an aside to a smirking Riker, who was, to his credit, making an effort to hide his expression.

"Firing now," Worf said, as phasers lanced out from the saucer. The beams maintained as Worf drilled away at one mine after another, creating a long string of exploding or exploded mines in his wake. Once a handful of mines had detonated, a chain reaction began, sweeping across the field faster than Worf's phasers could manage.

"The remaining Lhyarri vessels have been destroyed or disabled," Worf reported, shutting down the phaser. "Minefield is collapsing."

"Scan the area. Make sure there aren't any left," Picard ordered. "There's no need for anyone else to stumble into this mess."

"That will take time, Captain," Data commented as he began to run the requested scans.

"We have it," Riker shrugged.

"That was only half of our mission," Picard reminded them all. "What about Fenell?"

"I think," Counselor Troi put in, "that our friends will do better if we stay out of their way. Besides, they may have already captured him by now."

Riker leapt to his feet and headed for the aft wall. "I can boost the long-range sensors to try to pick up the shuttlecraft while we check to make sure all the mines are gone."

"Make it so," Picard ordered, settling back into his chair. "We'll conduct repairs and then pick up the trail ourselves. I want status reports from all department chiefs," he began, turning to his console.

Before long, the ship buzzed with repairs and reports, patching the big ship up from its recent battles. Amidst all this, Riker located the large Lhyarri mother ship—still all but crippled by the curious effects of Hel's Gate. He kept an eye on it as he continued to scan along their most probable course, and watched as it was eventually tossed away by the currents. Once it was at a safe distance, it picked itself up and limped away towards Lhyarri territory at low warp to lick its wounds, heading away from Hel's Gate, the _Enterprise_, the ruined trap, and especially Fenell.

Some time later, Riker looked up from his panel. "Captain," he reported, "I can't get any sign of a Starfleet shuttlecraft. The sensors say there's nothing Starfleet or Federation for light-years."

"Could they have been destroyed?" Picard asked. "Or are the sensors malfunctioning?"

"It's a possibility, sir; the short-range sensors did take heavy damage. Some of the damage could have carried over to the long-range, but it's unlikely."

"They could be simply masking their signal," Worf suggested.

"Could they do that?" Wesley asked.

"Wes, it's probably wise to just assume that they can do anything they feel like," Riker told the youth, only partly exaggerating. He doubted that masking a shuttlecraft's signal would be beyond the demon pair. _Why_ they would do it was more of a mystery—besides just wanting to be difficult, which they seemed to get a particular amusement out of…

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Ok! No more lazy! I'm writing! I'm writing. I'm planning—I'm plotting—I'm writing a sentence—I'm planning—I'm thinking…I'm…staring…at the ceiling…and eating marshmallow salad (Mmm…). Well, I knew that wouldn't last long… Yes, it looks like you got another space battle—this is why it took so long to write, because it's the whole chapter. Anyone who saw the title 'slingshot effect' and thought 'oh darn, TOS time travel' should congratulate themselves for being a trivia buff, but they can relax now. That aside, as Chat sections are now illegal (dumb rule), I am sending my wonderful reviewers their replies just as soon as I finish posting this.

_**Notice:** Finals are coming. Please bear with me as I juggle my life to include finishing this story. I will finish it. Promise._


	14. Reikai Tantei

**Chapter Fourteen: Reikai Tantei**

**Technology:** I was so set on using the name _Onizuka_ (it sounded Japanese but turns out to be the name of a _Challenger_ astronaut) that I never found out that shuttlepods are…hmm, distinctly small. We see the _Onizuka_ in three episodes (_Ensigns of Command_, _Mind's Eye_, _Outcast_), none of which I've seen recently. Besides, scale in Star Trek…not going there. Let's pretend (there's that phrase again) that this particular shuttlepod is actually the size of a regular full-size shuttlecraft, because otherwise I don't know how I'm going to fit four people into it, and revamping several chapters again isn't all that appetizing. Let me know if you think I should go back and change it.

**Author's Note:** On another note, there is a very good reason why this is late. (Sorry!) FINAL EXAMS. (Or are they midterms? Whatever.) As a not-so-valid reason, I have been on a _serious_ Star Trek: The Original Series binge for the last week or so, and have had problems writing in Yu Yu Hakusho mode after a couple days of our beloved Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, etc. all running around in my head and the TV. So if this chapter has a distinct flavor of TOS, that's why. Maybe that's why I couldn't get it to sound right. Does this set some sort of record for 'lousy excuse'?

**If You Didn't Know:** "Reikai Tantei" Spirit Detective(s).

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

Yusuke Urameshi had woken up with a hangover once—well, once that he would admit to. He had promptly vowed, once he could think relatively straight, never to get into that state again.

He was pretty sure either he'd just broken that vow, or something had belted him with the nearest mountain. Hadn't there been a couple at hand? Was it worth thinking about? What was the question again? His head was pounding like a jackhammer, only twice as loud, and if the world would stop spinning, he might be lying on the floor.

_Where the heck am I?_

Let's see. Let's replay the day's events…training, Kuwabara, OK. Argument, fight—that sounded OK, or at least unremarkable, too. Hiei and Kurama, spaceship…hold on a second…

"What the hell?" he yelped, sitting up with a start, and regretting both actions. He put his head in his hands, closed his eyes in a futile attempt to make the world go away, and contemplated lying back down on the rough carpet. "What's going on?" he asked from behind his hands.

"Evidently you don't time-travel well," an annoyingly familiar and—equally annoying—mildly amused voice said.

He didn't see the humor. "Damn you, fox-boy, this isn't funny."

"The headache will go away once your body adapts, Yusuke."

"To what?" he asked before he realized how stupid a question that was. "No, I don't want to know. Why am I sitting on the floor?" That, he figured, was probably a safe question.

"You passed out."

Now that was a nice, simple answer. Now for a slightly harder one. "Uh, and just why did I pass out?"

"Like I said, you don't time-travel well. Luckily for your ego, neither does Kuwabara."

"Oh good," he said fuzzily, and risked opening one eye. Hm…grey carpet.

Oh.

He opened the other eye, slowly lowered his hands from his face, and looked up, absently slicking back his black hair. "Cool," he said absently, not wanting to completely ruin his self-image by completely panicking. "Are we really on a spaceship?" The answer was obvious; as there were stars streaking by out the windows, and he was surrounded by technology he'd never even seen except in sci-fi movies. Still, he had to make sure.

"Last time I checked, yes, but we can check again if it will make you happy."

Yusuke was feeling up to glaring now, and therefore proceeded to scowl at Kurama, who was sitting quite comfortably in a chair, as opposed to the floor, and quite clearly getting a huge laugh at his expense. "Oi, wipe that smirk off your face."

"Sorry."

"Like hell you are. Why are we on a spaceship?"

"We already told you once; evidently you weren't listening or the time warp wiped your memory. Wake up the idiot first so we only have to tell it again once," Hiei's perpetually annoyed voice ordered him from the other seat, spinning it around to face them.

"Did that even make sense? This had better be good," Yusuke threatened as he noticed that Kuwabara was also sprawled on the floor and shook him rather hard by the shoulder. "I don't think you two are even supposed to leave the area, much less the planet."

"Huh? Oh, we forgot about that. It's been a while since we had to bother with it. But really, we're still there, you know."

"What?" Yusuke asked. He had a feeling that he was going to be using that word a lot in the next few minutes.

"Never mind."

Yusuke narrowly avoided being whacked as Kuwabara responded to the shaking by flailing about with his arms. "What's happening?" the tall boy hollered, leaping to his feet. Luckily, Starfleet had been generous with the height of the ceiling, and Kuwabara was not knocked out for a second time.

"What are we doing on a spaceship?" was his first question, as 'what's happening' didn't really count.

"A new mission—not exactly, but that's close enough," Kurama started as the Spirit Detectives had a brief staring contest for the spare chair. Kuwabara won, if only because he cheated by sitting down anyway as they glared at each other. Yusuke briefly considered hitting him, but desisted when he realized that if he did, it would be a while before any sort of explanation would be forthcoming.

"All right, I'm with you so far," he said, electing to lounge against a wall in an effort to look nonchalant. "So what's this mission and what does the spaceship have to do with it?"

"The spaceship is rather essential, considering it's our only way to where we're going. Beside that," Kurama sighed, "it has nothing to do with anything."

"Ok, now we come to the hard questions," Kuwabara said. "_Where_ are we going?"

"The name wouldn't mean anything to you; suffice to say it's somewhere else," Hiei snapped without much venom.

"Oh yeah? How do you know?"

"Because it didn't mean anything to us until a few hours ago, and we're actually from this time."

"All right, everyone shut up," Yusuke attempted to restore order, heading off another pointless back-and-forth between the orange-haired teenager and the fire demon by waving his fist around in the general direction of everyone else and missing all of them. "You better start from the beginning. This isn't making any sense. All I can see is that we're on a spaceship, careening through space to who knows where—"

"We do."

"That wasn't a question. –You two have apparently stolen said spaceship—"

"I lied."

"You shut up too! –Nobody is answering any questions in any way that sounds remotely normal, one of these weird-looking panels is making an annoying noise—"

Kurama slapped it silent without even looking at it. "Not important."

_Actually, it was,_ Hiei told him, turning his back on the ranting Spirit Detective in favor of investigating the sensor blip.

_Shh, I'm trying to see how long he can keep up this sentence._

"—You two are _thinking_ at each other again, and I have no idea what's going on!"

There was silence in the shuttlecraft for perhaps three seconds, except for the quiet noises emitted by the shuttlecraft controls.

"Are you quite through?" Kurama asked, straight-faced.

"And you're laughing at me!"

"I see not," the kitsune added, smile beginning to break through. Winding up Yusuke had been one of his more entertaining hobbies in life, as long as he wasn't around, or at least, not the target, when the human exploded. Unfortunately, there wasn't anywhere to run in a shuttlecraft, so he gave it up.

_About time too._

_Fine, I'll get to the point, as I presume you don't want to explain all this._

_Hell no._

"All right, calm down. If you explode, the fire-control system will get you, and that would be distinctly unpleasant for you."

Well, almost to the point.

"Kurama, if you don't start talking some sense right now, I am going to punch you into next week," Kuwabara growled.

"You're already in the next three centuries; don't bother," Hiei growled.

_And you think I'm a problem!_ "Well, simply speaking, we've got a rogue on our hands out here, and Hiei and I decided—"

"You decided."

"—to recruit a little help. How we did it doesn't really matter—you don't really want to know—but Fenell, as he calls himself, has become a problem, and it'll be easier to handle him with you along."

"Now we come to details I can handle," Kuwabara approved. "So the mission in a nutshell is…"

"Capture Fenell if possible, kill him if not, recover a dangerous substance he has in his possession, end of mission."

"Can do!" Yusuke approved. "What are we hanging around here for?"

"You want to jump out of the airlock and walk there, go ahead." Hiei rolled his eyes. "You won't get to Anara V any quicker."

"Anara Five?" Yusuke jumped on that before he could fully process and be properly offended by the fact that he had probably just been threatened and called stupid in the same sentence. Again.

"It's a planetoid a lot like Mars, only with less inhabitants."

Kuwabara squinted at the redhead at the conn. "Kurama…no one lives on Mars."

He returned the look. "The Moon was colonized in—what was that for?"

Hiei moved his fingers back to the console before his partner could snatch them. "The captain's going to have a fit anyway; do you have to tell them stuff?"

"Oops." _That was still completely uncalled-for._ "_The point is_ that Anara Five, which is a planet, is where we're going, because Fenell is hiding there. And because he still has a couple of kilograms of infernium, which is still experimental, not to mention illegal, we can't get near him, which is unfortunate since that's what we're supposed to take away from him."

"Why not?" Yusuke asked.

"The radiation is poisonous to us. We _could_ get close to it, but it would kill us very quickly."

"So that's why you brought us along," Yusuke concluded. "Whose idea was this anyway?"

Before either demon could answer, Kuwabara broke in with "Hey, wait a second! What's all this about radiation? What's it going to do to us?"

"Nothing." Hiei reconsidered for a moment. "Unless you eat it."

"Why would I eat something called 'infernium'?"

"I have no idea."

Kuwabara leapt out of his chair, narrowly missing the ceiling again. "You really think I'm that stupid? Why, you little—"

"Oh, stop it, both of you," Yusuke intervened, stealing the other teen's vacated chair.

"Hey! That's my chair!"

"Not anymore."

_This was a mistake._

_Probably. I hate to say I told you so…_

_Liar. Rub it in, why don't you?_

_…but I did._

**

* * *

**

It took the arrival of a planet out the window and the disorienting drop out of warp to get the attention of Yusuke and Kuwabara, who had gone from arguing over the chair to slinking around looking for food. They went from there to finding an alternative to slinking, as two teenage boys with attitudes and tempers don't slink very well. The alternative happened to be barreling about hollering, but there wasn't much room to run in a shuttlecraft, so they gave it up, having discovered neither the existence nor the purpose of the replicator.

"That doesn't look anything like the moon, Kurama," Kuwabara protested, looking down at it.

"No, I suppose it doesn't," he replied, not bothering to inform him that, yes, it did; the Moon had been terraformed two centuries ago.

Anara Five was a very-Earthlike planet, M-class; with approximately equal distribution of water and land. There were no indications of either current technologically developed or undeveloped civilizations. However, a large swath of dead land, sweeping across the equatorial region, indicated an ecologically damaging operation in the near past.

"What happened there?" Yusuke asked, nose pressed to the window. Under his breath, he muttered, "Too weird," as he had persisted in doing at random moments since his reconciliation with the fact that he was, in fact, on a spaceship.

"I'll check, but it looks offhand like a mining operation of some kind."

"You don't know?" Kuwabara inquired delightedly. "And I always thought you were some kinda human encyclopedia or somethin'!"

"He isn't human in the first place, you idiot," Yusuke reminded him, bonking him on the head with his fist.

Kurama ignored the banter, scrolling through the ship's databanks. Someone—most likely Data—had thought to upload the most exhaustive report on Anara V available into the shuttlecraft computer.

"Well?" Kuwabara asked, placing both hands on the back of the chair and looming ominously behind him.

"I'm looking! Why don't you let me look? Go bother Hiei for a while."

_Maybe I heard you wrong, _Hiei half-growled. _You're really in trouble now, kitsune._

_Sorry._ He was quite obviously not. _Tell them about Fenell and how we got into this mess anyway._

_What if I don't know?_

_Make it up; they won't know the difference._

"Fine," he said aloud, glaring at his partner, who ignored the look and resumed scanning through the report. "Even you've gathered by now that Fenell, a rogue spirit being, managed to steal a load of infernium. Now what infernium is and what it does isn't quite sure, but a group of scientists recently discovered that if they combine several common materials with a slightly uncommon substance found in only remotely distant sectors—oh, damn."

"What?" Yusuke asked.

"Kurama."

"Yeah?"

"'Ryalin'?" He flicked one hand at the computer screen.

The redhead paused. "It would figure. I'll check."

"What?" Yusuke near-howled, knowing from experience that when the demons were worried, something was wrong.

"The most essential component of infernium is probably located right down there."

"So they could make more?" Kuwabara asked.

"Probably, yes," Kurama muttered, looking up from the screen and nodding. "It's not in large quantities, but the scanners say it's down there, and the energy reading I think is their crashed shuttle is right on top of the largest deposit. Normally, it wouldn't matter, because from what I've read it would seem that it takes a while to be prepared, but the mining operation—that is what happened, by the way—might have provided a cover for them to begin processing more quite a while ago."

"Another monkey wrench. Wonderful," Yusuke complained. "So why is this Fenell a problem?"

"He holds the reins of an empire that all but worships him. Isn't that enough? As to how we got mixed up in this, he holds a deep dislike for demons, and us in particular."

"What did you two do to him?" Kuwabara grinned. "Steal something?"

"Actually, it would be easier to ask what _you_ did to him. You were rather instrumental in his downfall and near-death too."

"Us?" Kuwabara asked, pointing at himself.

"Yes, you. Your future, our past. Koenma came running to you when Fenell decided he was going to manifest himself as a god to certain cults. He's always had a taste for being worshipped, ever since taking control of the early Lhyarri. You were ordered to take him down. We showed up to save your butts—again. We lived, he died; we thought. The Lhyarri, his followers, got possession of his corpse and managed to keep him in stasis until he could be revived."

"What idiot let these Lhyarri guys have his body?"

"Koenma." All responsibility denied in one word—convenient.

"Figures," Yusuke muttered, slumping in the chair that he currently had possession of. "Stupid toddler messes something else up."

"Wait a second," Hiei glared. "If you already know that there was a mining operation, how come you're still reading?"

"Because you asked me to look up ryalin—and besides, you were doing so well."

"So how do we get off this spaceship?" Kuwabara asked. "If we're up here and they're down there, what do we do?"

_Evidently they don't remember the transporter._

_That could be useful; let's not expose them to it unless we have to. Besides, we can't transport down. Those same minerals would probably scramble the beam._ "It lands, Kuwabara—and yes, we can fly it."

"Good. If I'm gonna die in a crash, I want to at least crash in a cool car."

"Hn. Your turn to talk to them." Hiei spun his chair back around and took over the helm.

"How are we planning to deal with him once we run into him?" Yusuke asked. "I'll bet a little discussion is out of the question."

"Definitely. Once he sees you—and you can bet he'll remember you—he's going to be pretty mad, and he already knows we're after him."

"Can't we just land on top of him? Dropping a spaceship on him would probably put anyone out."

"That's it? That's your whole plan?"

"Yeah. What do you think?"

"In the last ten seconds you have just gone from merely clueless to dead stupid," Hiei informed him without even turning around.

"He may be rude, but I must agree. That is only the fourth-most stupid plan I have ever heard."

"Wow," Yusuke said, impressed. It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, but he hadn't thought it was that stupid. "What were the first three?"

"I can't tell you," Kurama said, smiling suddenly.

"Why not?"

"You haven't come up with them yet."

"I thought of the stupidest plan you've ever heard of?"

Kurama nodded solemnly. "We kept track."

"Why don't we just try a head-on assault? It's worked before." Yusuke gave no one any time to contradict him, and continued, "Once we land, do you know which way we're going?"

"We can find where they crashed their shuttle, and start from there," Kurama responded instantly.

"Neat," Kuwabara said from where he was standing, leaning on the back of Hiei's chair (to the fire youkai's growing annoyance) and looking out the window. "How?"

"I'm not explaining the sensors to you, Kuwabara, and besides, we'd rather use our own senses anyway, but look." Kurama ran his fingers over the console and pulled up a scan of the area below, which was rapidly getting nearer. "Here's where we're landing; a kilometer west of their crash point."

"Why'd they crash?"

"Probably engine burnout; they were pushing the engines pretty hard. By the time they made it here from Hel's Gate, they would have been hard-pressed to have working thrusters. In any case, they're a kilometer inside the burn zone, so I suppose we'll land on the border to give you time to acclimatize."

_We decided on that earlier, there's no 'I suppose' about it. Why are you trying to sound as if this is all new strategy?_

_Well, we know they'll always go for a head-on assault anyway. Besides, even if Yusuke had suggested something else, we would have done exactly what we're doing now. They won't be quite as annoying if they think they're in charge. No offense to them, but this is neither their time nor place, and if they pick a losing strategy and get killed, I don't want to think about what that'll do to the timeline._

**

* * *

**

"This looks like Earth," Kuwabara said skeptically. "Heck, it even smells like Earth. Are you sure we didn't go in a circle by mistake?" His uncertainty was easily understandable. In the valley between the large hills in the distance, dusky through the atmosphere, and their landing point, lay a grey and clearly abandoned mining facility, little more than a collection of weather-beaten buildings, and strips of brown earth where heavy use and repeated excavations had laid waste whatever had grown there.

"Perfectly sure, I don't know how I can prove it to you until we run into one of Fenell's people; I doubt there are many humans among them."

"We're dealing with aliens too?"

"To them, you're the aliens," Hiei snapped, shooting Kuwabara a _you-idiot_ glare from his perch on the roof of the shuttlecraft. "That smoke's not natural, Kurama." A small wisp of smoke was drifting from the edge of the group of buildings.

"Then that's where we're going," Yusuke said cheerfully, somewhat secretly relieved at being back on solid ground. "We're going to get ambushed, aren't we?" he asked rhetorically as they started down the hill.

"Of course."

"Wait a second," Kuwabara stopped them. "What about the space—the shuttlecraft? How do we know they won't slip round behind us and steal it?"

"You'd make a good thief, Kuwabara," Kurama said blandly, continuing to walk. The others followed. "But it'll lock itself until we get back." _Or until the _Enterprise_ shows up and orders it to unlock itself._

_The Lhyarri will keep them busy for a while, and then they've got to find it. I blanked us out of the sensor spectrum a while back._

"Ok, now I know we're not on Earth," Yusuke said a moment later, detouring slightly and hurrying down the hill a little way. "What is that?"

"That" was an indigenous creature, six-legged, mammalian, and pale blue. It leapt off the rock it had been sitting on at the teen's approach, baring two-inch fangs and making a skittering noise to warn him off. "Shoo!" he yelled automatically, waving a hand at it. It did, racing off on all six legs in the general direction of a large patch of scrub and small trees. However, before it got there, it stopped short and detoured, careening down the hill.

"I'll bet anything there's someone in there that creature didn't expect. If it's a trap, I'll spring it for them," Kuwabara challenged, and charged off. "Three battle auras!" he yelled, as he got closer.

"Three he can handle on his own," Yusuke said to no one in particular and to the accompaniment of a yell.

"If you helped, he'd probably be offended, right?" Kurama asked.

"I'd never hear the end of it."

"They're only Lhyarri anyway—wait, one's an Andorian," Hiei corrected himself.

"How can you tell?"

The fire demon was spared answering as Kuwabara reemerged from the bush. "That guy was blue!" he yelled for the whole area to hear.

"That's how," Hiei muttered, rolling his eyes.

"He was a lousy martial artist, though."

"You just knock him out, or what?"

Kuwabara waved a fist in the air and grinned.

**

* * *

**

Perhaps it was that there were only a limited amount of people one can pack into any shuttlecraft still small enough to be called a shuttlecraft. Perhaps it was that Fenell didn't trust many of his crew. But for any reason, they were attacked only once more in their journey to the crashed shuttle.

"What's with these guys?" Yusuke asked, flipping a stunned Lhyarri over with one foot. "If they didn't have those little ray guns, they wouldn't live out the day."

"Yeah, well, I still wouldn't like to be on the business end of one of those lasers. This coulda been us, y'know!" Kuwabara gestured to the black scorch marks scattered across the formerly green landscape. Firing wildly, the pack of six Lhyarri had charged out of one of the ramshackle buildings as the four Spirit Detectives had approached over a wooden, rather ramshackle, walkway. It seemed the training, whether it was simply beating each other up or not, had come in useful; neither human had been at all intimidated by the phaser fire, and had met them head-on, Spirit Sword and Spirit Gun flaring to life. Perhaps expecting a Starfleet away team, the former Reikai beings had been disoriented for a split second, and that was all it took for Yusuke and Kuwabara to be right in the thick of things.

_We could have almost just set them loose and told them to come back when they finished Fenell off,_ Kurama commented. _I'd forgotten how good they really were._

"Wow, these are pretty neat," Yusuke said happily, confiscating a fallen phaser. "Kapow!" he cried, aiming it at the door.

Kurama and Hiei traded _I've-got-a-bad-feeling-about-this_ expressions. "Do you want to try to take it away, or shall I?" the fox asked.

"How come?" Yusuke overheard. "If Fenell is really all that tough, oughtn't we arm ourselves?"

"I suppose you can't shoot yourselves with them," Hiei said. "Let them have them, then?"

"Hmm." Kurama picked up another phaser and fiddled with it. "Here, Yusuke, trade."

"Sure, but why?"

"That one's set on stun now. Don't change the setting." He handed the one Yusuke had been holding to Kuwabara. "They work exactly like they look. Front, back, trigger."

"What are the other settings?" Kuwabara would ask.

"Unnecessary."

"That's not an answer, shrimp."

"Just ignore the settings. He's not human, so stun might not knock him out. Only use your powers if you have to."

"All right, have it your way. Lock and load!" He paused. "Um, where do we go from here?"

"You're the sixth sense, idiot," Yusuke reminded him. "You tell us."

"Right!" Kuwabara concentrated for a moment. "That way," he said after a few seconds, raising one hand to point ahead and slightly to the right. "He's not even trying to hide."

"Good, he's probably out of ambushes then." Yusuke led the way in the direction Kuwabara had pointed.

"I guess so; I didn't sense anyone else…wait, no."

"What? Don't tell me you've overlooked an army hidden in—oh, that wooden shack over there."

"Drop dead, Urameshi," Kuwabara glared. "There's a second, much weaker aura almost hidden beneath Fenell's."

"Well, if it's that weak, we don't need to worry about it. Let's go!" Yusuke charged off in the direction formerly indicated, with the other three following behind.

Yusuke didn't even halt as he realized his path was taking him straight through the doors of the largest building in the complex. Dust flying, he skidded to a halt before slamming the door open. Luckily, hinges in twenty-fourth-century Anara Five functioned exactly the same as hinges in twentieth-century Earth.

"Who—" the man bending over a viewscope in the middle of the room snapped as he looked up.

Fenell gaped for an instant before regaining his composure. "Well, this is an unexpected…surprise," he said smoothly. Clearly, he could not bring himself to say 'pleasure'. "Permit me—how the hell did you two boys get here?"

Yusuke and Kuwabara had been referred to collectively as 'you boys' before, and it was still a tossup as to which annoyed them more; being called 'boys', or being lumped into the same category with each other. In any case, they glared across the obviously refurbished machinery at him.

An aura, visible even in the mundane plane, veiled the details of his appearance and clothing, revealing only indications of pale skin, a burgundy outfit, and a shock of brown hair. The only feature that could easily be seen was more than slightly supercilious golden-brown eyes, which were currently flickering between glaring in old anger and darting around the room ceaselessly.

"Not even the depths of space can keep you from justice!" Kuwabara yelled, enjoying the moment.

"Yes, I'm sure, but three hundred years are a little harder to traverse," he acknowledged. "I presume you two are responsible. Finally figured out you're helpless on your own, I see."

"Well, we were getting tired of chasing you round the galaxy; it's really inconvenient," Kurama replied, ignoring the insult breezily.

"I think I can return the compliment," Fenell snarled back. Without warning, he lifted one hand and flung it forward. The missile embedded itself in the wall with a thunk, narrowly missing Yusuke.

"Hey, watch where you're throwin' that!" he yelled. Glancing around to make sure his teammates were all right, he discovered that only Kuwabara was still within arms' reach.

"We can't get close, remember?" Kurama called. "Your battle!"

"Excellent, a free field," Yusuke said boldly, pulling the oddly shaped missile from the wall. Bouncing it in his hand, he noticed briefly the odd, grainy encrustations on the edges before flinging it back. Unused to the balance of it, he missed, but it was sufficient to send Fenell moving. Dodging between the racks of processing equipment, he managed to reach and hit a companel embedded in the wall, producing a squeal of feedback audible even over the crash of many metal tables hitting the floor as Yusuke and Kuwabara dashed round, into, and occasionally over in their offensive charge, powering up their spirit weapons. What had happened to the phasers was anyone's guess.

Unable to jump in and assist their teammates, the demons were forced to merely lurk on the sidelines and watch until the answer to Fenell's summons entered in the form of an armed and—this time—ready Nabuhari, who experienced no hesitation in launching an attack on the demons he so feared. Keeping right on the edge of the danger zone, they kept him away from anywhere with a stash of infernium. There was definitely more than 2.65 kilograms here, most of the extra—if not all—in this room. They could feel, almost hear, it grating on their senses like the scratch of a poor whetstone across pitted steel, which was indubitably a sensation that affected anyone within range, and badly.

Yusuke swore as he crashed into and through a table, which upon close encounter proved to be the twenty-fourth century equivalent of folding cafeteria tables: bulk-issued and easy to move, especially upon collision. Pulling himself to his feet, he prepared to release a trademark 'shotgun' blast from his clenched fist, but was forced to abort as Kuwabara leapt unknowingly into his line of fire. The teen struck at Fenell with his glowing, golden sword, but the blade merely bounced off a suddenly thickened line of aura.

No matter how much they jumped around, they couldn't get to him through the aura cloak. Countering their blows by channeling the veil into the point of contact, he was protected by that specific angle until the substance—whatever it was—was re-routed elsewhere to deal with a fresh attack.

"This isn't working," Kuwabara gasped, falling back to Yusuke's fallen table and using it as a shield of sorts. "Nothing we do can get through!"

"There's got to be a way," Yusuke said, half to himself, half to Kuwabara. "Wait, so he's invincible because of that cloak, right?"

"Right…"

"So if he's invincible, we need to make him not invincible."

"We need to get that cloak away from him!" Kuwabara concluded. "Any bright ideas on how to do that?"

Yusuke released the stored barrage he'd kept clenched in his fist, sending glowing blue pulses of spirit energy at their slowly advancing foe, stopping him again as he was forced to change the distribution of his cloak's power. Under cover of fire, he kept thinking aloud. "He's gotta have a controller of some kind. I can't believe he wears that all the time. If we can break the controls, it might lower on automatic. Start looking for something that looks like it could be a remote!"

"Hold on a second! What if it just locks it on 'on'?"

Yusuke thought for a second. "Then we run for the hills," he tossed off over his shoulder, and leapt out from behind the table, shouting something incomprehensible. Aiming a futile punch at Fenell, which sent a charge spitting through his body as the fist made contact with the cloak, he glanced around hurriedly. _Remote, remote, remote. Where is the remote? Are remotes out of fashion in whatever century we're in?_ he wondered spontaneously.

Kuwabara let Yusuke cover for him, dashing around the fallen items and smiting whatever was relatively small and blinking, on the off chance it might be the required controller. Though he glanced back over every few seconds, the cloak showed no sign of any deterioration—although he couldn't say the same for Yusuke's strength. The shocks from contact with the cloak's exterior were beginning to tell on him.

"Switch off, Urameshi!" he yelled, grabbing the shorter boy by the shoulder and tossing him away as he prepared for another attack. Swinging his Spirit Sword as fast as he could in a quick, pattern-free melee, he went on the offensive, trying not to let the cloak touch him, although Fenell continually swiped and struck outward with the cloak still covering his fists and arms.

_Fists…_

Deliberately, Kuwabara focused his strikes on Fenell's right side, forcing more and more 'charge' to respond to his attack. As it drained away from the left, it cleared just enough to reveal a silver box shaped somewhat like a cell phone clenched tightly in their opponent's hand.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara yelled. "It's in his _hand_!"

**

* * *

**

Stripped of his cumbersome robes and with a long knife in each hand, Nabuhari, aristocrat of the Lhyarri, was far more intimidating than he had appeared over a viewscreen on the bridge of the _Enterprise_. The knives were only one of Hiei and Kurama's concerns, however. No warrior intending to survive the day goes into battle with only one trick up his sleeve, and Nabuhari had taken that adage quite literally. He had more than a latent talent for illusion, and was using it to its fullest extent. Impossible explosions erupted beneath their feet, waves of darkness and distortion washed over them; phantom armies stormed through the walls, and behind it all, the knives scythed.

_Can you do anything about him?_ Hiei asked. _I can handle his knives if you'll dispel the illusions._

_I'll try…_

Nabuhari might have been fast, but no one who ever saw Hiei in battle, whether they were on opposite sides or not, failed to notice that his true gift was speed. He might have been small, yes; but that often led to him being underestimated, and if you had time to realize your error there wasn't much many people could do about it before his katana made the point rather moot. You can't, in truth, hurt, what you can't, in fact, hit, and Nabuhari was suddenly forced to shift his style from one-on-two to one-on-one as Kurama dropped back, which set him off just a little bit in mid-battle.

Disregarding the crashes and sizzles of breaking machinery as Yusuke and Kuwabara began their remote-smashing tactic behind him, they locked blades. Eyes meeting in silent snarls, each sought to gain the advantage, neither daring to shift their feet for a better stance for fear of losing their footing altogether. For an uncountable string of moments, they were at a complete standstill.

Of course, neither had worked completely alone for hundreds of years, and it was, in the end, two against one. As Nabuhari spared a single, simple thought to activate an illusion held dormant in reserve, Kurama caught the command and sent his own retaliation back along it, exploding the illusion, and the Lhyarri's concentration. Stumbling backwards as the shock of having his work undone by another, the blades' deadlock was broken against him. A single strike sent him flying into the wall at a corner, razor-sharp sword blade deflected from his throat only by the simple fact that it encountered the still-crossed knife hilts first—and those were strong knives.

As Nabuhari slid limply down the wall, it began to tremble somewhat, ancient timbers beginning to give way. Exposed to wind, rain, and whatever the elements and time had thrown at it, the building really was not designed to take a flying body into one of its key points in its current condition. A small tremble became a distinct shake, but went no further.

Kurama and Hiei glanced at each other. Some things could be suggested without any words, even telepathic ones.

_Chalk up another stupid plan for the list,_ Hiei said wryly as they put their shoulders to the key point and shoved.

The building was old. Really old. That last push was all it took to tip the balance in gravity's favor—and the Reikai Tantei's. Fenell, taken by surprise as his headquarters began to give way, was not as quick as he should have been to modify his shield-cloak.

Yusuke really was becoming a good shot. He blasted the controller right out of Fenell's hand, and if a couple of the spirit being's fingers got scorched in the process, there really were bigger things going on. A well-aimed blow from Kuwabara's Spirit Sword eliminated the shield-cloak forever; without the controller, as of very recently a useless lump of fused metal and relays, the cloak would quite clearly not function.

Perhaps one of Yusuke or Kuwabara's blows had connected; in any case, by the time Fenell began to make his way to a way out—although at that point, he could have just walked through the wall at any number of points—he was far too late to escape the avalanche of rotted timbers that came cascading down on top of him.

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note: **Wow! Look! I wrote a combat scene! Where did this (adjective at your discretion!) scene come from? As of this chapter, I'm discontinuing review replies. However, I should tell you that this is your last chance to ask questions—_any_ questions! If I've left any plot holes, tell me! I'll patch them, or at least patch the lack of a patch. _(What?)_ I hate plot holes. The last chapter should be ready right before or just after the New Year.

**Happy holidays to all.**

_Glory to God in the highest/and peace to his people on Earth._


	15. Double Bluff

**Chapter Fifteen: Double Bluff**

**Disclaimer: **Let's see, where's that 'Transfer of Ownership' certificate? It's around here somewhere… (sets off with flashlight, but forgets batteries) Stupid flashlight. Where's that light switch? Oh, forget it…Paramount owns Star Trek, Star Trek owns me, I own an _Enterprise_ figure and lots of books, Star Trek or otherwise. Really obvious where I stand in the grand scheme of things…

**Author's Note: **Happy New Year (late as it is)! And Happy Birthday to Me! Jan. 18! (blows on flute)—I don't have a trumpet, ok? —I've endeavored to answer the encouragingly few questions I received in context. Odd details, by the way, are simply a matter of personal amusement. Any other questions will have to be dealt with by use of the handy motto: 'I don't deal in reality'.

**ON WITH THE SHOW!**

"Captain, we have reached Anara V," Ensign Crusher reported, bringing the ship out of high warp.

"Helm, put us into geo-synchronous orbit," Picard ordered. "Mr. Data, report."

"The sensors are unable to obtain a clear readout," Data reported, plying his console. "There are deposits of indigenous metals that prevent detailed scans."

"Tell us what you can, Mr. Data."

"Aye, sir." Data's voice paused, but his fingers did not. "Commander, I have located _Shuttlecraft Onizuka_ in the north-eastern hemisphere. There are minor energy fluctuations in that region."

"Well done. Hail the shuttlecraft. I don't suppose either of them thought to carry communicators," he added on the side to no one in particular.

"No response, Captain," Data said a few seconds later.

"Very well," Riker responded, coming to his feet. "Can we transport down?"

"I don't believe so, Commander," Data warned him. "With nothing to lock on to, the deposits in the crust prevent safe transportation in an area of approximately sixty-five square kilometers."

"Data, I don't want to take another shuttlecraft down," Riker said, leaning one arm on the back of the lieutenant commander's chair. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

The android officer cocked his head on one side. "It should be possible to coordinate our beam with the shuttlecraft computer," he said after a brief moment of high-speed thought. "Linking the _Enterprise_'s transporter with the shuttlecraft's would, in theory, eliminate many problems."

"'In theory?'" Riker repeated skeptically.

"It has been accomplished before, sir." _(Author's Reference: TNG: 'Realm of Fear')_

"Fine. Mr. Worf, Mr. Data," Riker gestured, heading for the aft turbolift. The two officers fell into step behind him.

"Transporter Room Two," he said even before the doors swished closed. As the turbolift began to move, he tapped his commbadge and began a conversation with Chief O'Brien on the subject of Data's solution.

"Ready to transport, sir," O'Brien said in his cheerful Irish accent as the trio entered. "Um, sirs?" he added as they took up positions on the transporter pads.

"A problem, Chief?" Riker asked with a flippant air of _solve-it-NOW_.

"Not really, Commander, it's just that I'd prefer to transport you one at a time."

"Very well, Chief, that's an acceptable problem. Transport when ready."

**

* * *

**

"You could have warned us!"

"Well, you were busy."

"It's kinda nice to know when someone's gonna drop a building on my head, you know," Kuwabara continued at full pace. "I mean, just a couple little words, like 'look out below', or 'the ceiling is falling'!"

"Yes, but then Fenell would have heard too!"

"Oh," Kuwabara said, scratching at the back of his head as he puzzled that bit of logic through. "I guess so…"

"But in future, I will try to warn you…next time we drop the roof on your heads," Kurama apologized, trying heroically not to laugh as the latter half of that statement processed thoroughly.

"Next time? Whaddya mean, 'next time'?"

"It is becoming a habit," Yusuke chimed in from behind the walls of a nearby shack, where he'd been searching for rope. "What is it with ceilings?"

"I honestly don't know, Yusuke," Kurama admitted, managing to slip away while Kuwabara was distracted from haranguing him. "Did you find anything?"

"Sort of. Will these do?" He emerged from the building, shoving away the half-rotted door, and emitted a short gasp of laughter when his hefty shove pushed it off the hinges, raising a cloud of dust. "This place is a wreck!"

"They don't seem to have managed to reroute any decent building materials," Hiei explained, scrambling over the fallen beams and supposedly keeping watch over their unconscious prisoners, who lay in the omnipresent dust where the Reikai Tantei had dumped them after pulling them from the wreckage of their makeshift lab. In reality, he was scavenging through the fallen timbers for some as yet unknown reason. "They made do with whatever the real miners left here, and the Federation is a little picky about environmental hazards—not that it always does much. Whatever was abandoned had to be biodegradable. I'm surprised it held up this long."

"Reroute?" Kuwabara asked, seizing on the word.

"Steal, if it makes you happier."

"It doesn't. What are you doing?"

"Looking for something." The little demon continued his excavation of the wreckage, ignoring the wood dust that turned his black cloak grey, not to mention his taller teenage personal annoyance.

"These are computer wires, Yusuke. Where did you find them?" Kurama asked curiously as he helped the teen untangle the wires from where he'd tossed them over his shoulder a while ago and subsequently scrambled them.

"Go ahead and laugh, fox-boy," Yusuke said grumpily as the cables began to resemble themselves more than spaghetti. "I suppose this has never happened to you?"

Hiei failed to completely suppress a single snort of laughter, causing Kuwabara to look askance at him. "You can laugh?"

"Only when the occasion deserves it…and it did."

"Hiei, shut up! And please, don't ask. It's a _long_ story," Kurama said with a distinctly embarrassed wince.

"Someday I will have to tell it to them," Hiei muttered.

(Not so much long as stupid, it involves M&Ms, several large boxes of matches that just won't light, a 'whole lotta Christmas lights', and not a great amount of plot. You may draw your own conclusions…or **I'll** tell it some slow day. That being said…back to the story.)

Trying to resurrect the original subject before Hiei made good on his threat, Kurama continued, "Where did you get the cables, Yusuke?"

"Back there," he said, pointing over his shoulder with a recently liberated hand. "From a set of computers…or at least I think they were computers. I don't think you'll be able to get any information out of them, though; they looked dead."

"We'll see about that," Kurama said, abandoning trying to free Yusuke and setting off in the direction he'd indicated.

"Hey, get back here!" Yusuke yelled, and was completely ignored. "Damn him, anyway," he muttered, and pulled on the waving end of a partially loose wire, succeeding only in pulling it tighter. "Ow! Oops, maybe that was the wrong way."

He managed to untangle one length after a few extra seconds, and tossed it to Kuwabara, who caught it with a triumphant grin for his own skill, and proceeded to tie Fenell's arms to his sides with a large knot.

"No one's untying that anytime soon," the tall boy said proudly.

"Good, but can you do it again?" Yusuke teased, disentangling another cord from the gradually decreasing mess. "I bet not—you ever heard the phrase 'dumb luck'?" This time the thrown wire hit Kuwabara in the head, and wrapped around it several times, giving him the appearance of being attacked by either a skinny green snake, or a rabid garden hose.

Muttering uncomplimentary things under his breath, Kuwabara tied up Nabuhari in the same fashion. "Now what do we do with them?"

"How should I know?" Hiei asked. "I suppose you could tie them to something."

"Ya know what, shrimp, that's actually a good idea. Hey, Urameshi, get over here with that rope!"

"It's computer cable, stupid," Yusuke corrected him, but he did manage to disentangle the rest of the longest wire. Grabbing Nabuhari by the scruff of the neck, he dragged him over to a conveniently if oddly located fence. Luckily, the Lhyarri was not awake to protest such rough treatment, and the immediate vicinity was spared his compulsive sense of drama.

"Wait a second," Yusuke said, pausing as he handed the cable to Kuwabara, who stood on the other side of the fence to help wind the cable around the post. "Wasn't he armed?"

"He was," Hiei said, voice muffled. "Knives. Probably ceremonial—the Lhyarri love their rituals. If he had any sense he'd have used a phaser or a gun. Good thing that's not one of his features. Nice working, too. He must have dropped them when we knocked him out."

Yusuke propped his elbows carefully on the fence. "Oh, is _that_ what you're looking for?"

"No, detective, I dig around in fallen buildings for fun."

"Any luck?" Kuwabara abandoned his position on the other side of the fence, placing one hand on the top rail and attempting to leapfrog over.

Unfortunately for him, the wood really was old. It gave in as he put his full weight on it, sending wood mites, dust, and Kuwabara flying. The dust hung in the air. The teenager did not.

"Hey, idiot, news flash," Yusuke chortled, tapping him on the shoulder as the orange-haired boy lay full-length on the ground. "The wood's rotted."

"I SEE THAT!"

_No sense of humor whatsoever,_ Kurama's voice purred in Hiei's mind, having been listening to a running account of the chaos.

_If you say so…I think they've got too much._

_More likely. Yusuke really ripped the guts out of this computer, you know._

_I didn't, but I'll believe you. Can you get anything out of it?_

_Not much…I can get past their security codes easily enough—it's _old—_but the rest is missing a few important connections. I only managed to find what might be fleet distribution. Yusuke's ruined the rest. I don't think it was more than a backup for them to consult with on the fly. The_ Enterprise _really did have quite a few ships to deal with._

_I think they dealt with them._

_And your proof for this…_

Ignoring Yusuke's constantly self-interrupted just-out-of-reach lecture on the dangers of rotted wood, Hiei looked up from his search and closed his eyes. Beneath the white bandana, his Jagan eye glowed briefly. _Riker, Data, Worf._

_I think we're about to get in trouble again. I'll come get Yusuke and Kuwabara. The last thing we need is them saying something stupid and Worf putting them through a couple walls._

Hiei deeply regretted this, and Kurama's chuckle didn't change his mind much.

**

* * *

**

They followed, by chance, exactly the route the Spirit Detectives had taken in their descent to the complex, Data having unlocked the computer shutout on the shuttlecraft in, according to him, approximately two-point-nine seconds. Armed with hand phasers, they proceeded cautiously down the slope. However, despite their care, they did succeed in disturbing a handful of rather queasy and decidedly stunned henchmen, who leapt from their places on the grass to run a little too late.

It was the work of a moment for the three Starfleet officers to take aim and fire. Bright beams connected with the two fleeing Lhyarri and the one Andorian, and they tumbled to the ground, rolling slightly down the incline, stunned again.

"Riker to transporter room," the first officer hailed, tapping his commbadge. "Can you lock onto the three life-signs a meter from my signal?"

"Aye, sir, I've got a lock," O'Brien replied from the ship.

"Energize on my signal, then, and have them transported directly to the brig." There was, after all, no harm in being cautious.

"Ready to transport, Commander."

"Energize," Riker commanded, and the three stunned men dissolved into blue sparks, to be rematerialized seconds later in the ship's brig.

"Come on," Riker ordered, holstering his phaser, although his hand continued to hover over the grip. "And keep an eye out."

Data pondered this odd expression until they reached the ramshackle buildings. "The buildings appear to be of an inferior construction, reassembled from materials left behind when the legitimate company abandoned the installation ten years previously."

"That explains why it looks like an Old West town," Riker commented. "I'm surprised it's not falling apart at the slightest gust of wind," he continued, noting the wreckage of what had probably been a large building before gravity took its toll. "If I kicked it, it'd probably collapse."

"Yes, it would. You mightn't even have to kick pretty hard."

"Hiei, do you enjoy just appearing out of nowhere and frightening people out of their skins?" Riker snapped, managing to control the automatic impulse to yank his phaser out of his holster and wave it around.

"Of course, Commander."

"That's really annoying."

The demon nodded serenely, now seated cross-legged on the same heap of timbers previously observed, which still slightly resembled a building in a state of significant exposure to gravity. "Yes, I know."

"Where's Kurama?"

"With the rest of our team, trying to keep them from falling into nonexistent holes or something equally stupid—now, don't move, Commander, hear me out. By the way, if you're looking for Fenell and, you'll be displeased to hear, Nabuhari, they're tied to a post over there. Stunned, or at least they should be, considering we've been zapping them with a phaser every time they breathe funny."

"Lieutenant, check it out," Riker ordered with a jerk of his head.

"Aye, sir," Worf rumbled. He drew his phaser and circumvented the ruins. Swinging his phaser to aim at the revealed prisoners, he pulled a tricorder from his belt and scanned them. "Both unconscious, sir."

Hiei managed not to say 'I told you so,' but it was tempting.

"Where did you get the rope—no, it's computer cable, isn't it?" Riker couldn't help asking.

"We stole it."

"Is that your standard reply to every question?" Data asked.

"Well, usually," Hiei said with a shrug. "Most people believe it—it's something we would do."

"Speaking of 'we'-"

"Were we?"

"We are now. Where's Kurama? And who are these 'others' you've mentioned?"

"Two people who really don't need to know about Worf." For lack of a better option, and tired of the stupid questions, Hiei mentally 'suggested' that Riker really should beam the Lhyarri and Fenell back to the ship, and it would be an excellent idea to send Worf (the security chief, after all) with them.

"Worf, beam up with the prisoners. Keep them under close guard at all times," Commander Riker ordered.

"Aye, sir," Worf replied. Tapping his commbadge, the Klingon requested transport for himself and the two unconscious people at his feet. After a few moments, he slowly dissolved into the transporter effect.

"All right, happier now? What's going on down here? And no evading the question!"

Hiei shrugged slightly. "We picked up the two we went to get, flew here, got into a fight with Nabuhari and Fenell, knocked down a building, and waited for you to show up. Which you've taken your time about, by the way. Anything else?"

Riker collected his thoughts in the wake of this clipped account of the last few hours, interrupted by the blipping of Data's tricorder.

"Commander, my tricorder is detecting the presence of infernium in this area," Data said. He waved it around slowly, punctuated by varying degrees of intensity, and ended up pointing it directly at the chaos of building supplies. "Beneath the rubble."

"Beneath lots of rubble, as far away from me as possible," Hiei chipped in. "I'm not going near that much of the stuff."

Riker glanced around and noticed anew the lack of anyone else, specifically Kurama, in the vicinity. That couldn't help but strike him as a little odd, as he'd never, save for the little incident in Engineering, seen one without the other close at hand. This also struck him as a little ominous, since in aforementioned situation, they'd been up to something, namely hacking into the ship's database.

"Well, as you were so kind to mention it," –this was ignored in favor of polishing what closely resembled a knife— "Data, why don't you track it down exactly? If it's contained, we'll beam it back to the _Enterprise._"

"Aye, sir," Data responded, tricorder still making it's familiar noise, and skirted the chaos to get a closer look, as it was.

"All right," Riker started again, folding his arms and trying to convey the absolute certainty that he _would_ get a straight answer. "You've mentioned friends" ("Hardly.") "that helped you capture Nabuhari and Fenell, and that you had to risk Hel's Gate to fetch. Who are they, and where are they now?"

Perhaps Hiei merely humored him; in any case, he received a relatively direct reply. "The Hel's Gate current led back to turn-of-the-millennium Earth, about three hundred years ago. Back then, we used to work with two human boys. We were sent on missions every so often to deal with people like Fenell, who were trying things they shouldn't where they shouldn't. Actually, they were the ones who put down Fenell in the first place, so we thought they might be useful."

It didn't take long for Riker to catch on, and his Starfleet training and human dislike of time travel assured his reaction. "You pulled two boys three hundred years into the future and exposed them to the present-day?"

"I just said that. Weren't you listening?"

The commander was forced to ask, returning sarcasm for sarcasm, "Have you ever heard of the Temporal Prime Directive?"

Hiei looked down his nose at him—a clever accomplishment for someone maybe five feet tall and sitting down. "Repeatedly. Don't look like that. We know what we're doing."

_As of maybe five minutes ago…_

_He doesn't need to hear about little points, kitsune._

_The devil is in the details, right?_

_Exactly._ "Don't worry, Commander, there's no risk of them running into themselves out here, and they've been dead for two centuries or so anyway. They'll be back in their own time no worse for wear and remembering nothing as soon as the _Enterprise_ can get back to Hel's Gate. We know."

When Riker looked skeptical about this, Hiei added, "Believe me, Commander, if they knew anything about us from the future, we would have heard about it—repeatedly—in the past."

"Where are they now?"

Hiei lifted one hand and pointed over Riker's head towards where the _Onizuka_ presumably still was. "Back at the shuttlecraft, and have been for…" He paused. "Thirty seconds. Or so."

"What do you plan to do with them in the time between returning to the _Enterprise_ and taking the shuttlecraft back through Hel's Gate?" Riker challenged, still losing the battle to come up with an unanswerable question.

"They won't see the _Enterprise, _but we'll meet you there." The knife reflected the sunlight briefly before disappearing. A second later Hiei vanished.

"That's _really_ annoying," Riker muttered before joining Data in his scan.

**

* * *

**

"Where are we going now?" Yusuke asked as they reached the shuttlecraft. "Hey! It's on!"

It was. No longer was the shuttlecraft dark and dead, power hummed from the nacelles and within.

Refraining from agreeing to the obvious, Kurama answered the real question. "You're going home before we get blown up."

"Blown up?" asked Kuwabara excitedly. "By who?"

"No one, and let's keep it that way. One moment." He stopped short and stood absolutely still.

"Hell-oo," Yusuke said, waving his hand back and forth in front of his blank eyes. "Anyone home?"

"Stop that," Kurama said, coming back to life. "That's really annoying."

"What was that all about?" Yusuke asked stubbornly.

"Forget it. Let's go."

"Hey, where's the shrimp?" Kuwabara asked, turning a full circle.

"Up here, idiot," Hiei said from the roof of the shuttlecraft, causing Kuwabara to leap skyward in surprise.

"When did you get there?" he yelled.

"About a second after you looked away, actually." He landed on the ground and palmed the airlock open. "Coming?"

"What about Fenell?" Yusuke remembered as he walked into the shuttle and the airlock hissed closed. "Are we just going to leave him here?"

"No, he's already in custody. The away team showed up and took him away."

"What? When was this?"

"Why do you think I brought you up here by another path, Yusuke?" Kurama asked rhetorically from his seat at the helm. "We're already going to get yelled at for breaking the Temporal Prime Directive. Legally, we shouldn't have brought you forward in time." He turned his back on them and began manipulating the computer console, still talking. "If you'd come in contact with the away team, you would have learned much more than you really needed to know. As it is, you already know a bit too much."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Kuwabara asked belligerently, crossing his arms.

Kurama smiled rather evilly and pressed a sequence of buttons. "See you in a few hours."

"What the—"

The world dissolved into silver-blue sparks around the two human boys.

**

* * *

**

"—hell do you think you're doing?" Yusuke continued, then jumped slightly as he took in the change of scenery. "Actually, just what the hell!"

"It's two hours later than it was two hours ago," Hiei told him.

"Well duh! That's a universal constant! But how'd we get here so fast? Where is here?"

"Hel's Gate. It's a temporal anomaly and how we came back to your time. We're going to have to power down the shuttle quite a lot, so we brought you out of transporter stasis in order to avoid scrambling your patterns by accident."

Kuwabara loomed threateningly over the back of Kurama's chair. "What's transporter stasis?"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

"If I knew what it _sounded_ like, would I have to _ask?_"

"No, probably not. It's difficult to explain without an explanation of the basics, and I'm not telling. Suffice it to say that you couldn't even notice the passage of time."

"We're going in there?" Yusuke asked, peering at the front viewscreen.

"Yes."

"That's stupid."

"Why yes, it is." Kurama grinned. "But we've already been through it twice—you were unconscious the second time—and we haven't crashed yet."

"Crashed where?"

"Exactly. Hold on tight."

Yusuke and Kuwabara looked at each other, gulped in unison, and sat down on the floor. Kurama turned around to face them.

"Listen, you're probably not going to stay conscious after we pass through, and we're going to take that opportunity to wipe your memories. I don't want to have to knock you out. We're sorry, but you can't know about the future. If you remembered, you might make different choices and wreck the timeline, and you have no idea how difficult patching is. So…well, thanks again." He broke the semi-serious mood by shooting a sideways grin at his sulking partner. "Hiei won't agree, but it was nice seeing you again. We still haven't found anyone that gets on his nerves quite as much."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Hiei groaned over the chuckles and launched the shuttlecraft into the vortex.

**

* * *

**

"Urgh."

Well, that was coherent.

Yusuke didn't really want to get up. The ground was nice and comfortable, really. If he moved, after all, the colossal full-body ache might just choose to turn into screaming pain.

He'd risk it.

The sky didn't really suit his mood. It was too blue.

Blue? There was something about blue… He didn't like it, anyway.

It ought to be…oh, grey. He was in pain. Couldn't it be raining? But then he would be in pain and wet, which wouldn't be much better.

This was going nowhere. He pulled himself to his hands and knees and focused on ground level instead, discovering that if he'd gotten himself royally thrashed, he'd at least managed to beat up Kuwabara in the meantime. His spirit power was pretty drained, so he must have used it up in the spat. Stupid word, spat. He didn't remember it, but he had a lump the size of a rather large egg on his head, and he didn't remember getting that, either.

Mmm, eggs. He liked eggs.

Well, he'd woken up first, so he won by default. That was the rule. Maybe there was something to eat inside. He'd go bother the old grandma in hopes of food for a while, and maybe even an icepack.

The fading pattern of fingers on his shoulder hurt too. He examined it for a second, and thought, 'stars'.

Wait a second…

He gave it up after a few moments. What was he trying to remember anyway? Oh yes, eggs.

**

* * *

**

"Mr. Crusher, set a direct course for Starbase 214, warp seven, engage." He punctuated the command with a hand gesture just in case the ensign wasn't listening, and continued, "Mr. Data, please inform the Base Commander of our imminent arrival." Picard finished issuing his orders and reclined in his command chair, paging through one of the ubiquitous, self-propagating status reports.

"Aye, sir," they chorused, and went about their duties. The _Enterprise_ hummed to life beneath them and leapt into space.

"What's our ETA?" Commander Riker asked.

"Two days, seven hours, forty-eight—"

"That'll do, Data."

Data blinked, said "Aye, sir" puzzledly, and swiveled his chair around to face his console again.

**

* * *

**

Despite Worf's dire predictions, the _Enterprise_ saw neither hide nor hair of trouble on the short trip to Starbase 214. If the Lhyarri objected to one of their ranking nobles being held on an alien ship, they remained quiet about it and complained only among themselves.

In any case, the largest disturbance in two days was the Astronomy and Physics Departments throwing a joint tantrum at not getting to study Hel's Gate any closer, but that was fairly routine; part and parcel of discovering something weird and usually dangerous. Usually, they were told 'no: it'll eat us if we stay around and poke it'. The only unusual thing about it was the fact that they were teaming up to create a joint sulk.

If Hiei or Kurama had anything to do with or about it besides laugh, they continued to keep a low profile. It was getting far too easy to blame things on them.

"_Starship_ _Enterprise_, you are cleared for docking," the crackly voice of the officer in charge on the Starbase.

"Understood, approaching bay doors," Picard replied, standing 'at ease' between the two forward bridge consoles and nodding to Wesley. He watched calmly as the enormous bay doors opened silently and his colossal ship cruised gently in, passing the _U.S.S. Spartacus_ where she hovered at port, tethered by airlocks and docking 'umbilical cords'.

The _Enterprise_ bumped gently against a docking pylon and paused. "Thrusters at station-keeping," Wesley reported as per regulations. The whirr of the maneuvering thrusters caused the deck to vibrate slightly in an oddly calming manner, then died away as Spacedock completed their half of the maneuver.

"Captain, we are docked," Ensign Crusher continued, and leaned back slightly in his chair.

Picard nodded acknowledgement and congratulations. "Mr. Data, get me the base commander, and route it through to my ready room."

"Understood, sir," Data said as the door swished to behind his captain.

**

* * *

**

Captain Picard sipped the last of his Earl Grey tea, no longer hot, as Base Commander Tarvos' face faded from the screen. Quickly completing the authorization of transfer of the Lhyarri and other assorted rogues in custody to Starbase 214, he uploaded the paperwork into the ship's database. To his slight annoyance, it was punctuated by a slight interference pattern, which did not hinder the transfer, nor did it seem to affect the transmission of the documents to the base computer.

Hailing the computer, Picard requested the location of their demonic guests.

The computer chirped back, "Specified individuals are not aboard the _Enterprise._"

Picard frowned at the ceiling. "Computer, check again."

"There is no record of specified individuals aboard the _Enterprise._" The computer's voice sounded just a little smug at being proved right. The Captain hated that. It reminded him a little too much of Lwaxana Troi.

Picard tapped his commbadge. "Mr. La Forge, will you please report to my ready room? Bring Data with you."

"Aye, sir," Geordi replied, a distinct edge of confusion creeping into his voice before the channel was severed. Only a minute later, he entered the captain's private sanctorum with Data and an unrequested Will Riker in tow.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Geordi asked. "I was almost positive that my teams had fixed all the battle damage."

"We appear to have a problem with the computer's memory," Picard said, rising and yielding the computer terminal and chair to Geordi. Data peered over hiis shoulder curiously. "It can't give me any computer records of either Hiei or Kurama."

"None at all?" La Forge echoed in a baffled tone of voice. "That's not possible. Did you search the personal logs?"

"No."

"Let me try that." He typed furiously at the little keyboard. "Captain, could you authorize access?"

"Yes, of course." Picard pulled one of the other chairs across the room, seated himself, and swiveled the little laptop around to face him. He typed in a code and pushed it back to La Forge, who resumed tapping. A few seconds later, he shook his head, confusion evident.

"I don't get it. I _know_ I've mentioned them, but there doesn't seem to be a single entry mentioning their names. Without reading every log personally, I can't verify the accuracy of the search, either."

"They wiped the databanks," Riker said from his seat on the couch. "But how, without leaving no record?"

"Conceivably they would have been able to delete the record, too," Picard theorized.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Data, do you have any input?"

"More of a theory, sir?"

"Go ahead; let's hear it."

"I believe we have been…" He paused as if searching for the right word, and then turned to his blind friend. "Conned?" he asked.

"Do you mean tricked?" La Forge asked.

"Yes."

"Then by all means, 'conned' will do very nicely, Data."

Data nodded as if satisfied, then continued like nothing had happened. "Conned," he said firmly.

"Explain," Riker ordered.

"The files have not been deleted. They have been moved. Geordi, may I use the terminal?"

"Of course," La Forge said, and yielded the chair to Data in his turn.

The android's fingers flew across the keyboard. "Intriguing," he said as he typed. "It would be logical to assume that this is a pre-arranged scheme. The deception is clearly well-practiced."

"Well, explain, Data. I said explain, and I meant it. What have they done?"

"The files," Data clarified, "are in a blank space created some weeks ago during their orchestrated 'black-outs', as the crew dubbed them. While I was reviewing the databanks during that period, I noticed a curious vacancy. When I checked again, after a blackout had passed, it was filled. I believe that if I return to that computer space, the relevant files will be there." As he spoke, he continued to type, wending his way through the ship's computer.

"As I expected, sir," Data said as smugly as he'd mastered so far. "Captain, I believe they intended you to access this."

"How do you know?"

"It requires a level-ten code to open."

"Well, I don't even want to know how they managed to get my security codes," Picard muttered. He pulled the laptop across the desk again and scanned the screen. "_Mon Dieu_," he grumbled. "If this is their idea of a joke, it's a pretty high-security joke." Nevertheless, he entered one of his codes.

The computer whirred, bleeped to itself as it verified the code, and displayed several lines of text. The captain scanned it, snorted, and handed it over to Commander Riker, who had abandoned his seat on the couch in favor of looming over the desktop.

"'If you try running around the galaxy looking for us, you'll be chasing your own tails for a long time,'" he read. "'Starfleet has better things for the _Enterprise_ to do. Catching up with us isn't one of them, unless you'd like to come help dropkick Koenma off the roof of his own Spirit World palace a few times for handling Fenell so stupidly. Don't waste your time. The cloaking device sensor down in the deflector dish _might_ have helped…but if it's missing a few components, it's not our fault…really. Mr. La Forge can have fun trying to figure it out.

"'All the files relating to us are stored, or at least cross-referenced, in this file. We assume Data was the one that found it; tell him well done, and if he remembers a comment from four years ago, he's not as bad as a Vulcan—he's _worse_. (We _know_. We couldn't fool the one that admiral was talking about either.) Your crew's been doing a little research and taking a lot of notes. Science has worn off on them. None of it will help you track us—if it had, we'd have deleted it—but we'd consider it a favor if you'd just attach it to any report you happen to write and recommend that Starfleet lose it in a dusty file cabinet somewhere—and they do still have those if you look in the corners enough. If you don't, we'll stop by and lose it for them next time we're in the neighborhood. It's far easier to help out from the shadows if no one knows we're _in_ the shadows, Captain: think about it.

"'If you see us again, it'll probably be too late. Any other demons are your problem. We gave up the job of policeman years ago.'"

Geordi chuckled from the other extra chair as Riker looked flabbergasted at the screen. "They've got nerve. Data, what were they talking about? What Vulcan?"

"I believe I remember the remark…but I am not sure if they mean it as a compliment or not."

"You'll have to explain that one over a drink in Ten-Forward later, I think."

"I will."

"Yes, Data, your word was perfectly apt," Riker observed. "We've been conned."

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Well, I'm finished! I did drop a hint for a prequel, but that's not on my schedule…unless enough people see it and would like it to show up one of these days. Please do not use that idea or the _U.S.S. Spartacus_—mine, mine, mine. I really do need the _Spartacus_ for my next TNG story, and if I start seeing her around, I'm not going to be happy. But I'm happy now! I finished my largest story so far and I think it's pretty good! Please tell me if it is. (If you got this far just to say that it isn't, you need something else to do…) If I've inspired anyone to go read Yu Yu Hakusho, be warned…it's a little south of the stupid line…I still don't know why I like it.

_Double Bluff:_

Credits

**Real Legal Stuff: Star Trek © Paramount, Gene Roddenberry, and Rick Berman. Yu Yu Hakusho © VIZ and Yoshihiro Togashi. 'Sleight of Hand', content, and the _U.S.S. Spartacus_ © Le'letha.**

_(You don't have to read this, but this fills in for a _lot_ of disclaimer material. See, I am a big fan of—er—creative recycling. Otherwise I'd write original fiction, huh? I hope no one recognized too much, though no one's complained yet.)_

_The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Version 1: _(yes, the **agonizingly** out-of-date paperback from '94)

_The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual _

Star Trek (dot) com and The Computer Core Dump

**grayangle**

**SonOfTed**

Tamora Pierce's _Immortals Quartet_ and _Street Magic_

Michael Jan Friedman's _Captain's Table:_ _Dujonian's Hoard_

Dafydd ab Hugh's _Invasion: The Final Fury_

_Star Trek: Enterprise_'s "Borderland"

Anne McCaffrey's _Acorna_ series

All The Myriad People Behind _Star Trek: The Next Generation_

Yoshihiro Togashi and Shonen Jump (VIZ)

**Kokoro Sabishii**

My brother, **A.N.T.**

**Special Appreciation to All Reviewers: **(in alphabetical order…) _emilychristinad/keepondreaming16, Ginevra, grayangle, Katherine, KHnews hound, kob, Kokoro Sabishii, koriaena, Sigokat, SonOfTed, and The Nth Degree._ Everyone else who has read this, I hope you enjoyed it. Seeing as you got this far, I think it's safe to say you did. Thank you all.


End file.
